Marvel Studios' Avengers: Infinity War - Official Trailer
GOP/Koch(Thanos) are actively applying their version of economics which would require many people to die (and is basically the same policy as Thanos in Avengers, Infinity War where he wants to kill half of the universes population for prosperity);
This Libertarian Strategy to Make America as Screwed-Up as Texas Before there were the Koch Brothers, there was James McGill Buchanan, the inspiration for their modern right-wing oligarchy.
How would you draw a line connecting Buchanan to the Koch brothers?
Charles Koch supplied the money, but it was James Buchanan who supplied the ideas that made the money effective. An MIT-trained engineer, Koch in the 1960s began to read political-economic theory based on the notion that free-reign capitalism (what others might call Dickensian capitalism) would justly reward the smart and hardworking and rightly punish those who failed to take responsibility for themselves or had lesser ability. He believed then and believes now that the market is the wisest and fairest form of governance, and one that, after a bitter era of adjustment, will produce untold prosperity, even peace. But after several failures, Koch came to realize that if the majority of Americans ever truly understood the full implications of his vision of the good society and were let in on what was in store for them, they would never support it. Indeed, they would actively oppose it.
So, Koch went in search of an operational strategy -- what he has called a "technology" -- of revolution that could get around this hurdle. He hunted for 30 years until he found that technology in Buchanan's thought. From Buchanan, Koch learned that for the agenda to succeed, it had to be put in place in incremental steps, what Koch calls "interrelated plays": many distinct yet mutually reinforcing changes of the rules that govern our nation. Koch's team used Buchanan's ideas to devise a roadmap for a radical transformation that could be carried out largely below the radar of the people, yet legally. The plan was (and is) to act on so many ostensibly separate fronts at once that those outside the cause would not realize the revolution underway until it was too late to undo it. Examples include laws to destroy unions without saying that is the true purpose, suppressing the votes of those most likely to support active government, using privatization to alter power relations -- and, to lock it all in, Buchanan's ultimate recommendation: a "constitutional revolution."
Today, operatives funded by the Koch donor network operate through dozens upon dozens of organizations (hundreds, if you count the state and international groups), creating the impression that they are unconnected when they are really working together -- the state ones are forced to share materials as a condition of their grants. For example, here are the names of 15 of the most important Koch-funded, Buchanan-savvy organizations each with its own assignment in the division of labor: There's Americans for Prosperity, the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the American Legislative Exchange Council, the Mercatus Center, Americans for Tax Reform, Concerned Veterans of America, the Leadership Institute, Generation Opportunity, the Institute for Justice, the Independent Institute, the Club for Growth, the Donors Trust, Freedom Partners, Judicial Watch -- whoops, that's more than 15, and it's not counting the over 60 other organizations in the State Policy Network. This cause operates through so many ostensibly separate organizations that its architects expect the rest of us will ignore all the small but extremely significant changes that cumulatively add up to revolutionary transformation. Gesturing to this, Tyler Cowen, Buchanan's successor at George Mason University, even titled his blog "Marginal Revolution."
In what way was Buchanan connected to white oligarchical racism?
Buchanan came up with his approach in the crucible of the civil rights era, as the most oligarchic state elite in the South faced the loss of its accustomed power. Interestingly, he almost never wrote explicitly about racial matters, but he did identify as a proud southern "country boy" and his center gave aid to Virginia's reactionaries on both class and race matters. His heirs at George Mason University, his last home, have noted that Buchanan's political economy is quite like that of John C. Calhoun, the antebellum South Carolina US Senator who, until Buchanan, was America's most original theorist of how to constrict democracy so as to safeguard the wealth and power of an elite economic minority (in Calhoun's case, large slaveholders). Buchanan arrived in Virginia just as Calhoun's ideas were being excavated to stop the implementation of Brown, so the kinship was more than a coincidence. His vision of the right economic constitution owes much to Calhoun, whose ideas horrified James Madison, among others.
And from that kind of thought, Buchanan offered strategic advice to corporations on how to fight the kind of reforms and taxation that came with more inclusive democracy. In the 1990s, for example, as Koch was getting more involved at George Mason, Buchanan convened corporate and rightwing leaders to teach them how to use what he called the "spectrum of secession" to undercut hard-won reforms through measures that have now become core to Republican practice: decentralization, devolution, federalism, privatization, and deregulation. We tend to see the race to the bottom as fallout from globalization, but Buchanan's guidance and the Koch team's application of it through the American Legislative Exchange Council and the State Policy Network reveals how it is in fact a highly conscious strategy to free capital of restraint by the people through their governments.
Another way all this connects, indirectly, to oligarchic racism: wanting to keep secessionist thought alive for this practical utility, the billionaire-backed right necessarily gives comfort to white supremacists. A case in point: the Virginia governors who supported the Buchanan-Koch enterprise at George Mason University also promoted a new "Confederate History and Heritage Month." Likewise, the Ludwig von Mises Institute, which honors one of Koch's favorite Austrian philosophers, is located in Alabama and led by Llewellyn Rockwell, Jr., a man who has long promoted racist neo-Confederate thought, yet was still thought fit to run the Koch-funded Center for Libertarian Studies. It's thus a mistake to imagine that the Koch and so-called alt-right causes are wholly separate; there's a kind of mutual reinforcement if you understand what Koch learned from Buchanan and how they operated.
As I conclude in the book, as bright as some of the libertarian economists were, their ideas gained the following they did in the South because, in their essence, their stands were so familiar. White southerners who opposed racial equality and economic justice knew from their own region's long history that the only way they could protect their desired way of life was to keep federal power at bay, so that majoritarian democracy could not reach into the region. The causes of Calhoun, Buchanan and Koch-style economic liberty and white supremacy were historically twined at the roots, which makes them very hard to separate, regardless of the subjective intentions of today's libertarians.
Daily Show: SAM BROWNBACK'S CONSERVATIVE KANSAS EXPERIMENT 10/16/2014 Jessica Williams travels to Kansas to investigate the outcome of Governor Sam Brownback's extreme tax-cut experiment.
Sam Brownback declares war on Kansas: This is how extremists gut a state — and democracy The ultraconservatives take control, with an assist to ALEC and no concern for the people
Gov. Sam Brownback’s march to zero income taxes, combined with legislation designed to weaken public services and wrest control away from local government, are hollowing out the very aspects of government these committees focus on. Public education certainly seems targeted to be greatly supplemented by, if not outright replaced by, private education.
We see this in other states as well. For some time now, model legislation from the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), Americans For Prosperity (AFP) and other libertarian / ultraconservative organizations has been used as the template for bills in states with varying levels of ultraconservative control. Such templates have been developed on everything from taxation and fiscal policy, to energy and the environment, to health and human services.
Looking just at education, in 2015 there were 172 measures introduced in 42 states based on ALEC model legislation, according to the Center for Media and Democracy. The general goal being to “… transform public education from a public and accountable institution that serves the public into one that serves private, for-profit interests.” With public education commonly comprising a significant portion of state budgets, this dovetails nicely with ultraconservative legislation focused on drastically shrinking government and reducing taxes.
Comparing Kansas and California; What happened after California raised taxes and Kansas cut them
The state of California made some headlines last week when the latest economic data found that the Golden State’s economy is now the sixth largest on the planet, passing France and Brazil. It was a striking milestone just in terms of California’s sheer economic might.
But there was something else about the news with some political salience: when California raised taxes on the wealthy in 2012, creating one of the highest marginal tax rates in the country, conservatives were certain the state’s economy would take a severe hit. How’d that work out? The Washington Post reported the other day:
California grew just fine in the year the tax hikes took effect… California’s economy grew by 4.1 percent in 2015, according to new numbers from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, tying it with Oregon for the fastest state growth of the year. That was up from 3.1 percent growth for the Golden State in 2014, which was near the top of the national pack.
At the same time, Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (R) slashed taxes, leading conservatives to predict great things for the state’s economy. And yet, here we are.
The Kansas economy, on the other hand, grew 0.2 percent in 2015. That’s down from 1.2 percent in 2014, and below neighboring states such as Nebraska (2.1 percent) and Missouri (1.2 percent). Kansas ended the year with two consecutive quarters of negative growth – a shrinking economy. By a common definition of the term, the state entered 2016 in recession. […]Kansas’s gross domestic product is still less than it was at the end of 2011, said Menzie Chinn, an economist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who has been following Kansas’s economy. Meanwhile, the economy in the rest of the country continues to expand.
In case it’s not obvious, California and Kansas don’t have much in common, and they have very different populations and industries. It wouldn’t be fair to evaluate the two solely on the basis of size. But it is fair to note that conservatives’ predictions weren’t even close to being correct about these two states – though it hasn’t caused much in the way of introspection.
The Koch Brothers Are Using Fox News Employees As Campaigners
At least 15 Fox News hosts and contributors have recently campaigned with two political organizations created and heavily funded by billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch. Many of those same Fox News personalities have also defended the Kochs from attacks and praised their political efforts on-air.
The controversial conservative brothers founded the 501(c)(4) group Americans for Prosperity (AFP) and its 501(c)(3) sister group the Americans for Prosperity Foundation (AFPF) in 2004. David Koch has called AFP the group he feels "most closely attached to and most proud of" and chairs AFPF's board. (The Washington Post notes of the IRS code distinction: "A 501(c)(4) is allowed to do considerably more issue advocacy work than a 501(C)(3), however. Neither group has to disclose the identity of its donors or the amounts of money those contributors have given.")
Politico's Ken Vogel reported that AFP "intends to spend more than $125 million this year on an aggressive ground, air and data operation benefiting conservatives, according to a memo distributed to major donors and sources familiar with the group." The Washington Post wrote that with a paid staff of 240, split between 32 states, AFP "may be America's third-biggest political party." In 2012, "More than $44 million of the $140 million the organization raised in that election cycle came from Koch-linked feeder funds."
AFP and AFPF are part of a massive $400 million network of political groups spearheaded by the Kochs. The Huffington Post's Paul Blumenthal noted, "It is the electoral focus of the Koch nonprofits and their sophisticated efforts to shield donors' identities -- plus the vast sums of money they move -- that has brought them the unwanted attention of both Democratic Senate leadership and reporters. There exists no outside network or organization supporting Democratic Party candidates in elections, while not disclosing its donors, that spends money in comparable amounts."
AFP states that it "mobilizes citizens to effectively make their voices heard in public policy issue campaigns" and "educates citizens about where their elected officials stand on our issues." AFP campaigns have included false attacks about health care reform, clean energy, economic issues, and elected Democrats like President Obama.
Fox News personalities are the public face of many AFP/AFPF events. Promotional materials heavily tout the speakers' affiliation with Fox News to increase attendance. According to a Media Matters review, the following Fox News personalities have participated in AFP and AFPF events since 2012: Guy Benson, Tucker Carlson, Monica Crowley, Jonah Goldberg, Greg Gutfeld, Mary Katharine Ham, Mike Huckabee, Laura Ingraham, Andrew Napolitano, Sarah Palin, Charles Payne, Dana Perino, John Stossel, Cal Thomas, and Juan Williams.
The Koch/Fox News events are aimed at rallying attendees to support conservative causes and fight progressive initiatives. For example, an invitation for a May event featuring Tucker Carlson stated the rally will "send a message to the Left that we know the truth and support free market solutions." Information for a November 2013 rally with Monica Crowley said participants will "learn how you can fight back against government restrictions, taxes, and out-of-control spending." And an October 2012 event with John Stossel was a "Hands Off My Health Care Rally" which sought "to fully repeal Obama's deeply flawed health care bill."
Media Matters previously documented how numerous Fox News personalities campaigned for Republican candidates and organizations during the 2011-2012 election cycle.
Koch/AFP Finds Support On-Air With Fox's Koch Campaigners
Fox News' Koch campaigners have defended the Kochs on-air, dismissing criticism of them as "McCarthyistic," and "a form of social control." They've also praised Koch political efforts as "effective" and "devastating" against Democrats. Here are seven examples from this year:
- During the May 8 edition of Special Report, Tucker Carlson criticized attacks against the Koch brothers and said, "Who's ever heard of Charles and David Koch? Is this really going to move voters? ... This really is telling of the global warming cult. Cross its leaders and you are accused of crimes against nature, I mean literally crimes against nature. It's a form of -- it's a form of social control."
- During the April 21 edition of The Five, Greg Gutfeld and Dana Perino promoted Americans for Prosperity's list of things conservatives can do to celebrate Earth Day.
- During the April 13 edition of The Five, Gutfeld said of attacks on the Kochs: "The government hates the Koch brothers because they make you less reliant on government. No wonder Reid hates them because he makes Reid obsolete." Perino added that the Kochs "spend less than Democratic-leaning billionaires do, they are actually more effective. That's why I guess they are being held up and targeted. It is almost McCarthyistic, the types of things you hear from the Senate floor about two Americans who are expressing the First Amendment rights."
- On the April 10 edition of Fox Business' Stossel, during a discussion about whether rich Americans should pay more taxes, Stossel stated: "Well, you're saying Donald Trump or Charles Koch, they -- I think they're strivers."
- During the March 8 edition of Fox & Friends Saturday, Tucker Carlson and Mike Huckabee criticized Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) for his attacks on the Koch brothers.
- During the February 12 edition of The Five, Dana Perino praised an anti-Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) AFP ad as "devastating." AFP highlighted Perino's praise on its YouTube page.
- During the January 3 edition of Your World, Charles Payne aired and praised an "effective" AFP ad against Landrieu.
Fox News overall has been friendly to Americans for Prosperity and the Koch brothers. The network has consistently minimized Koch campaign funding and defended them from attacks by Democrats. Fox has also repeatedly highlighted AFP ads.
Who Are The Fox News/Koch Campaigners?
Here are 15 Fox News employees who are campaigning for the Koch brothers' groups, and some of the events they've participated in:
Guy Benson (Fox News contributor). Benson spoke at a June 14 event in North Carolina and a November 2013, event in Illinois.
Tucker Carlson (Fox & Friends host / Fox News contributor). Carlson spoke at a May 27 event in North Carolina. He also spoke at October 2012 events in Montana.
Monica Crowley (Fox News contributor). Crowley spoke at a May 20 event in Wisconsin and a November 2013 event in New Jersey. She spoke at numerous events in Colorado and North Carolina in October 2012.
Greg Gutfeld (The Five and Red Eye host). Gutfeld spoke at AFP's 2013 Defending the American Dream Summit in Florida.
Mary Katharine Ham (Fox News contributor). Ham spoke at August 2012 and May 2012 events in Colorado.
Laura Ingraham (Fox News contributor). Ingraham spoke at the Freedom Summit on April 12 in New Hampshire. She also spoke at an October 2012 event in Indiana, an October 2012 event in North Carolina, and an August 2012 event in Washington, DC.
Andrew Napolitano (Fox News senior judicial analyst). Napolitano spoke at October 2012 events in Florida.
Sarah Palin (Fox News contributor). Palin spoke at a July 2012, event in Michigan and a June 2012 event in Nevada.
Charles Payne (Making Money host / Fox Business contributor). Payne spoke at an October 2012 event in Virginia.
Dana Perino (The Five host). Perino spoke at an October 2013 event in Arkansas.
John Stossel (Stossel host). Stossel spoke at an October 2012 event in Florida. AFP sponsored an April 2012 Stossel book event in Texas.
Cal Thomas (Fox News contributor). Thomas spoke at a September 2012 event in North Carolina.
Juan Williams (The Five host / Fox News contributor). Williams spoke at a February 2013 event in Wisconsin and a January 2012 simulcast event on school vouchers.
This Libertarian Strategy to Make America as Screwed-Up as Texas Before there were the Koch Brothers, there was James McGill Buchanan, the inspiration for their modern right-wing oligarchy.
What would a society based on Buchanan's principles and goals look like?
Tyler Cowen, the economist who co-presides with Charles Koch over the cause's academic base camp (yes, that Tyler Cowen, host of the most visited academic economics blog), has spelled that out. You might want to sit down to hear what he envisions for the rest of us. He has written that with the "rewriting of the social contract" underway, people will be "expected to fend for themselves much more than they do now." While some will flourish, he admits, "others will fall by the wayside." Since "worthy individuals" will manage to climb their way out of poverty, "that will make it easier to ignore those who are left behind." And Cowen didn't stop there. "We will cut Medicaid for the poor," he predicted. Further, "the fiscal shortfall will come out of real wages as various cost burdens are shifted to workers" from employers and a government that does less. To "compensate," this chaired professor in the nation's second-wealthiest county advises, "people who have had their government benefits cut or pared back" should pack up and move to lower-cost, poor public service states like Texas.
Indeed, Cowen forecasts, "the United States as a whole will end up looking more like Texas." His tone is matter-of-fact, as though he is reporting the inevitable. Yet when one reads his remarks with the knowledge that he has been the academic leader of a team working in earnest with Koch for two decades now to bring about the society he is describing, the words sound more like premeditation. For example, Cowen prophesies lower-income parts of America "recreating a Mexico-like or Brazil-like environment" complete with "favelas" like those in Rio de Janeiro. The "quality of water" might not be what US citizens are used to, he admits, but "partial shantytowns" would satisfy the need for cheaper housing as "wage polarization" grows and government shrinks. Cowen says that "some version of Texas -- and then some -- is the future for a lot of us" and advises, "Get ready."
You conclude your book ironically with a Koch maxim: "playing it safe is slow suicide." How does that apply to those who support a robust, non-plutocratic society?
I ended the book that way because I understand the many pressures that lead people not to act on their anxiety over what they are seeing unfold in Washington and so many states. Union leaders have fiduciary responsibilities that make bold action risky. Nonprofits have boards of directors to answer to. Young faculty must earn tenure. People in public institutions worry about their next appropriations. Parents have to budget their time. And so on. We tell ourselves, "Well, if it were that serious, surely others would be doing something about it." So, I wanted to alert people that what is happening now is radically new -- and designed to be permanent. We may not get another chance to stop it.
Having said that, though, I also believe that panic is the last thing we need. There is great strength to be found in the simple truth that Buchanan and Koch came up with the kind of strategy now in play precisely because they knew that the majority, if fully informed, would never support what they seek. So, the best thing that those who support a robust, non-plutocratic society can do is focus on patiently informing and activating that majority. And reminding all Americans that democracy is not something you can just assume will survive: It has to be fought for time and again. This is one of those moments.
Some more important information on how the Kochs are manipulating people from the same article;
Why, until your book, has his importance to the right wing been largely overlooked?
There are a few reasons Buchanan has been overlooked. One is that the Koch cause does not advertise his work, preferring to tout the sunnier primers of Hayek, Friedman and even Ayn Rand when recruiting. Buchanan is the advanced course, as it were, for the already committed. Another is that Buchanan did not seek the limelight like Friedman, so few on the left have even heard of him. I myself learned of him only by serendipity, in a footnote about the Virginia schools fight.
In fact, Buchanan's records provided a kind of birds-eye view into collaboration between the corporate university and right-wing donors that at least I have never seen before, and I've done a lot of research in this area over the last two decades.
n.
Research: New Book Exposes Koch Brothers' Guide To Infiltrating The Media
A key element of the Koch brothers' strategy is influencing the media. Through media, they have advanced their political and ideological goals and attacked those who stand in their way. The Koch brothers and their network have paid conservative media figures to promote their message, bankrolled front groups that run aggressive anti-environmental media campaigns, and even created their own right-wing "news" outlets. Meanwhile, they've garnered some favorable mainstream media coverage by tightly controlling reporter access to their summits and other events, while attacking and otherwise intimidating journalists who dare to shine a light on their activities.
Here is how the Koch brothers and their network have infiltrated the media:
Thanos Style Politics (standard GOP politics)
Surviving in Thanos capitalism is glorified in the media (the way war and dying in a war was once glorified) or like the movie Hunger Games...
Media portray these tales of perseverance as uplifting and inspirational. They're actually horror stories. In areas like health care and sick leave, systems are failing Americans -- and the obsession with uplifting stories optimized for social media is obscuring it.
If you spend any amount of time on social media, you’re probably familiar with mega-viral uplifting stories like “A teacher battling cancer ran out of sick days. School employees showered him with theirs,” “Birmingham college student walked 20 miles to 1st day of work so his boss gave him his car,” “Vietnam vet named 'Smiley' gets new teeth after living toothless for 40 years,” and “Little girl desperate to save mom’s life after cancer diagnosis opens lemonade stand.”
These four examples all come from just the past five months, but there are countless additional articles and segments that share the same lessons about never giving up, going the extra mile, and taking care of others. The articles are framed to make you feel good, to illustrate the kindness of others, to show you that things can work out when tragedy hits, and yes, to “restore your faith in humanity.” These are excellent messages that we could probably all benefit from having in our lives, but there’s one thing that gets left out on an all-too-regular basis: the underlying causes.
If the United States followed the lead of other well-off countries, paid sick leave would eliminate the need for co-workers to donate their sick days; if workers were paid a living wage and we invested in public transportation, no one would have to walk 20 miles to work; if we fulfilled the promises made to our veterans, none of them would go 40 years without teeth; if we treated health care as a right, no child would feel a responsibility to sell enough lemonade to keep their mother alive. Each story could be just as easily framed in a way meant to disgust us with the state of the social safety net and inspire us to enact policies that prevent such situations from happening. Instead, the authors tend to isolate each situation from its larger context.
In 2017, writer Adam Johnson coined the term “perseverance porn” to refer to uplifting stories centered around people overcoming long odds and societal roadblocks on the path to happy endings. It makes for an apt name considering how these stories fetishize bootstrapping one's way out of trouble.
Part of what makes perseverance porn so effective, at least when it comes to getting our attention, is that it tends to follow a storytelling structure sometimes known as the “dramatic arc” -- consisting of, in the Florida teacher’s story, an introduction (meet this teacher), a rising action (he was diagnosed with cancer), the climax (he realized he doesn’t have enough sick days), a falling action (he posted a selfie calling for help), and a resolution (within four days other teachers had donated enough days to cover his needs). In these dramatic-arc pieces, we see the happy ending, or are at least left with the impression that there will be one. This is the same time-tested technique, sometimes also referred to as the “hero’s journey,” used in fiction from The Odyssey to Star Wars. (In this case, CNN did publish a follow-up story making similar arguments about the original piece as are being made here, but it was an opinion piece and not the straight-reported version originally published.)
The problem with these stories is that they routinely gloss over harsh realities in order to fit this structure. They lead us to believe that these situations have a way of working themselves out. In fact, many (if not most) people facing these challenges — whether it’s the majority of people whose medical crowdfunding campaigns don’t reach the goal, or it’s someone who dies because they can’t afford their cancer treatmentor their insulin — don’t get the the help they need, and things do not magically work themselves out. But these stories buoy the conservative argument that aspects of the social safety net should be trimmed back or abolished altogether in favor of private charity.
During his run for the 2012 Republican nomination for president, Ron Paul famously responded to a questionabout what responsibility the government should have for an uninsured person facing a long-term medical emergency such as a coma by saying that such a person should “assume responsibility for himself.” When pressed, he suggested that churches, neighbors, or friends would take care of it. In practice, we can see that this just isn’t the case.
Last year, artist Shane Patrick Boyle lost his health benefits after moving from Texas to Arkansas to care for his dying mother. A Type I diabetic, he simply didn’t have the $750 he needed to buy a month’s supply of insulin, so he did what more than 250,000 people do each year: He launched a GoFundMe campaign. Unlike the stories the news media tends to highlight, his doesn’t have a happy ending. He came up $50 short, and less than a month later, he was dead.
Read more.Anyone opposing Thanos Capitalism (such as having laws for the rich to hide their money from taxes in off shore tax havens but not for the poor, i.e. class warfare) is called a socialist or neo-socialist;
Fox Business attacks Pope Francis for making "authoritarian socialism ... part of Catholic doctrine" Stuart Varney: Pope Francis' denunciation of offshore tax havens suggests "we now believe that authoritarian socialism is part of Catholic doctrine"
STUART VARNEY (HOST): I've got two problems with this. Number one, this document approved personally by the Pope, is part -- it came from the Catholic doctrine, (comma) the Vatican's office for Catholic doctrine. Do we now believe that authoritarian socialism is part of Catholic doctrine? I've got a problem with that. Number two, I don't want to see politics. When I go to church on a Sunday, and I'm a believer, I go -- I don't want to hear politics from the pulpit. I just don't want to hear it. So I'm like, save my soul, not my vote.ELIZABETH MACDONALD (FOX BUSINESS STOCKS EDITOR): And what did Jesus say, "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's," right?ASHLEY WEBSTER (FOX BUSINESS): But you know, isn't the church all about money?
Related:
Previously:
To help capitalism thrive the market has to be balanced. In other words, people should be able top leave and enter markets without being pushed out by big corporations and conglomerates. That is the very essence of "the common good".
AMERIFAM 9/28/2011 Samantha Bee gives a struggling American family all the advantages of corporatehood, with a huge can of "You're welcome."
To deal with Warren's move towards such control on corruption of their masters, Fox news blatantly lies about what is going on in the following example;
Fox & Friends hosts a CEO to attack a proposal to give workers a larger voice within corporations Rebecca Walzer: "Corporations already answer to the American public. Look at the rise of social media."
ED HENRY (CO-HOST): Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren unveiling a shocking new proposal that would nationalize every major business in America. The new legislation called the Accountable Capitalism Act would constitute the largest seizure of private property in human history. So what would it do to our economy? What would it look like with the government in charge of our largest corporations? Let's ask the CEO of Walzer Wealth Management, Rebecca Walzer....What's your immediate reaction to this idea that all of the sudden the government would nationalize all these companies?REBECCA WALZER (WALZER WEALTH MANAGEMENT CEO): Well, I'm glad that she's bold enough to actually tell us exactly what she wants because now we can call a spade a spade. This is definitely socialism because socialism is public ownership of companies where all the profits are actually redistributed to stakeholders instead of shareholders. And --HENRY: Yeah, let me just break down the bill for you and then we can let you pull it apart. So this is what Elizabeth Warren says because, as you point out, she's being direct, she's being blunt about saying I want socialism. "The Accountable Capitalism Act restores the idea that giant American corporations," she writes, "should look out for American interests. Corporations with more than a billion dollars in annual revenue would be required to get a federal corporate charter." She says the bill "also would give workers a stronger voice in corporate decision-making at large companies and employees would elect at least 40 percent of the directors to address self-serving financial incentives in corporate management." That's what she says is in the bill. What's your reaction to that?WALZER: You know Ed, it's just simply unnecessary. Corporations already answer to the American public. Look at the rise of social media. When somebody is not happy with something that corporations are doing, it's all over Twitter. There's boycotts. We already have really ownership of private corporations through boycotting. If you don't like what they're doing you don't go there. So what she's trying to do is really say let's take the profits of these corporations and let's use them for our purposes, and so what we have to look at is how good is the government at taking resources and effectively using them, and so the VA comes to mind, Medicare comes to mind, Social Security comes to mind. These are all financially inept systems and American businesses reach a billion dollars because they are privately managed and with regulation, already government regulation, they are free to do what they do.
Previously:
What Warren ACTUALLY proposes...
Sen. Warren introduces anti-corruption bill, criticizes Trump Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., is introducing new legislation to end corruption in Washington, and she joins Morning Joe to discuss the bill. Sen. Warren also calls the Trump White House the most corrupt administration in living memory.
Notes:
1. No conflict of interest.
2. No bribing/lobbying (especially after being a politician i.e. conflict of interest for passing laws)
3. Make sure publica are at least on even footing with rich plutocrats manipluatring policy in thier favor at teh cost of the American people
4. No insider trading (conflict of interst again) - No woning busines on the side (it influeces stuff like wage increases since Republcians are thinking of THIER business profits and not the peopel or society in egneral)
5. No private interests working for "public good" as conflict of interest make sit impossible to helpt he publican when personal inetrests are involved (as GOP have proven again and again)
Basically Warren is trying to remove CONFLICTS OF INTEREST through rules and regulations. There is no company/corporation/department being formed to MAKE/PRODUCE anything.
Opposing wage increases, an proven effective way of improving standard of living AND boosting the economy is being fought tooth and nail for a more vulturistic/slave type job experience of abject poverty (thus inflation eats away at real wages while Republicans that hire minimum wage workers get to keep their costs low by manipulating public policy in thier favor like robber barons);
MSNBC's Stephanie Ruhle explains that huge companies that pay low wages force their employees to use public assistance Ruhle: "In the state of Arizona ... one in every three of Amazon’s employees depend on SNAP to put food on their family’s table. In Pennsylvania and Ohio, the figure appears to be about one in ten"
STEPHANIE RUHLE (HOST): In today’s "Money, Power, Politics," are we subsidizing low-wage employees for companies with record profits? A comprehensive report from UC Berkeley’s Labor Center studied working families who rely on public assistance programs like Medicaid and CHIP, the basic household income assistance program Temporary Aid to Needy Families, and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. That means U.S. taxpayers are footing the bill. That’s about 153 billion bucks every year.The Intercept and the New Food Economy examined this problem, focusing specifically on Amazon employees using SNAP food benefits. In the state of Arizona, please listen to this, one in every three of Amazon employees depend on SNAP to put food on their family’s table. In Pennsylvania and Ohio, the figure appears to be about one in ten. The president for his part consistently picks fights with Amazon about their use of the U.S. Postal Service for deliveries and their dominance in the retail market, and even Jeff Bezos owning The Washington Post. But here's what makes no sense. None of those touch the legitimate criticisms of Amazon. You want to criticize Amazon? I’m going to help you do that right now, but what the president is going after is nonsense.When jobs do not pay enough, workers turn to public assistance in order to meet their basic needs, and that burden is falling on taxpayers. But when the head of that company paying low wages happens to be the richest man in modern history -- let me remind you of this, Jeff Bezos on Amazon Prime Day become worth $150 billion -- when he’s worth that much money, you begin to start asking the question, are companies like this who are paying their employees so little gaming the system?
Previously:
Job growth seen in states that raised minimum wage - Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., joins to discuss a new study indicating that the 13 states who raised minimum wage saw better job growth than the states who didn’t.
Basically a complete set of proofs that GOP economics has the same goals, though different means, of Thanos.
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