From The Ramparts

Junious Ricardo Stanton

Corporate Welfare Fraud

/“As large corporations, and their trade associations, complete their takeover of the federal government—a process that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt called fascism in 1938—the corporations become the government. Just look at the recent headlines in the business press. Article after article features abuses and over-runs by companies contracting with the Department of Defense and other agencies. The enormous volumes of waste, fraud and poor delivery affecting the Iraq war-occupation now only produces ho hum newspaper and television stories. Recently, the student loan scandals, exorbitant burdens on students graduating from college imposed on them by companies with influence in Washington, like Sallie Mae, whose government guarantees make a mockery of capitalism, have riled members of Congress to some modest action. Once again this year, the big boys on Wall Street stretched the envelope of risk and greed and ran down to Washington, D.C. to be bailed out by the accommodating Federal Reserve. Chairman Ben Bernanke testified before the Senate that he had no choice but to take on about $30 billion of Bear Stearns obligations or there could be a run on other big banks. Where was the Federal Reserve when this credit, debt and risk spree was building during the past five years? There is no penalty for failure—whether on Wall Street or in Washington, D.C. for misusing or wasting the taxpayers’ monies.”/ Bailout Bonanza By Ralph Nader http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article

The contrived controversy the Clinton’s and the corporate media have made over a Barack Obama speech where he said debt ridden, out of work, stressed out residents of rural AmeriKKKa were bitter and they didn’t think their elected representatives in Washington relate to their plight, obscures the truth of Obama’s statement. This fake controversy disguises the reality that fascists like the Clintons are the ones who are out of touch with ordinary people and they are working to execute an agenda that does not include our best interests. The notion put forth by an extremely desperate Hillary Rodham Clinton that Obama was an elitist further obfuscates an even deeper truth, her husband Bill helped grease the skids to enable the banking elites to rape, pillage and plunder the US economy to the point it’s about to collapse. The latest deal is the bankers and people who engineered the collapse are now setting the stage for the US taxpayers to bail them out! While the crooks and con men on Wall Street and in Washington have ample precedent for such chicanery (the Savings and Loan scandal of which John McCain was a key part is just one example) the scam they are about to pull off makes even the crooks who put the US taxpayers on the hook for billions following the S and L bail out look like Boy Scouts. “The S&L crisis in a few years mushroomed into the biggest national financial scandal in American history. By the end of the decade, large numbers of S&Ls had tumbled into insolvency; about half of the S&Ls that had been in business in 1970 no longer existed in 1989. The Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation, which insured depositors' money, itself became insolvent. In 1989, Congress and the president agreed on a taxpayer-financed bailout measure known as the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act (FIRREA). This act provided $50 billion to close failed S&Ls, totally changed the regulatory apparatus for savings institutions, and imposed new portfolio constraints. A new government agency called the Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC) was set up to liquidate insolvent institutions. In March 1990, another $78,000 million was pumped into the RTC. But estimates of the total cost of the S&L cleanup continued to mount, topping the $200,000 million mark.” Savings and Loan Bailouts From U.S. Department of State 6. The Role of Government in the Economy

This is a prime example of the marriage between business and generous government largess better known as “corporate welfare” or just plain fraud. Corporate welfare is stealth Socialism, socialism on the sly for the rich. It’s reverse Robin Hood stealing from the poor and giving to the rich. The government gives big business special breaks, they’ve given them no bid contracts, bailed them out when they’ve failed or mismanaged their business and under George W Bu$h they’ve worked in tandem to fraudulently rip a comatose citizenry off. The corporate media is in on the scam too. They keep us distracted with programming that diverts our attention to nonsense, keeps us focused on trivial issues and dummies us down with disinformation and fascist propaganda.For example the corporate media helped the Bu$h administration sell the invasions and occupations of both Afghanistan and Iraq under the rubric of Bu$h’s bogus War on Terrorism. Most experts knew there was no connection between Osama bin-Laden the CIA patsy the Bu$h administration blamed for 9-11 and Saddam Hussein. Yet the corporate media amplified and passed on the Bu$h administration’s lies about a connection between bin-Laden, Hussein and weapons of mass destruction. This allowed the military industrial complex to make trillions off of the bogus War on Terror. This opened a flood gate of corporate corruption, mismanagement and fraud that’s still going on today, sinking the US further and further into fiscal ruin. The beneficiaries of this governmental largess have been the defense contractors who are making out like the bandits they are.

Nobel winner in the field of Economics Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes say the true cost of the Iraq invasion and occupation is $3 trillion; that’s trillion with a “T”, dollars. “In our new book The Three Trillion Dollar War, Harvard's Linda Bilmes and I conservatively estimate the economic cost of the war to the US to be $3 trillion, and the costs to the rest of the world to be another $3tn - far higher than the Bush administration's estimates before the war. The Bush team not only misled the world about the war's possible costs, but has also sought to obscure the costs as the war has gone on. This is not surprising. After all, the Bush administration lied about everything else, from Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction to his supposed link with al-Qaida. Indeed, only after the US-led invasion did Iraq become a breeding ground for terrorists. The Bush administration said the war would cost $50bn. The US now spends that amount in Iraq every three months. To put that number in context: for one-sixth of the cost of the war, the US could put its social security system on a sound footing for more than a half-century, without cutting benefits or raising contributions. Moreover, the Bush administration cut taxes for the rich as it went to war, despite running a budget deficit. As a result, it has had to use deficit spending - much of it financed from abroad - to pay for the war. This is the first war in American history that has not demanded some sacrifice from citizens through higher taxes; instead, the entire cost is being passed onto future generations. Unless things change, the US national debt - which was $5.7tn when Bush became president - will be $2tn higher because of the war (in addition to the $800bn increase under Bush before the war).”

War costs and costs and costs | Comment is free

Another nexus between big business and the government can be seen in Henry Paulson’s financial industry reform package. Paulson who is currently the Secretary of the US Treasury is a former CEO of Goldman Sachs the giant investment bank. Goldman Sachs also sent Robert E. Rubin to the US Treasury during the Clinton administration. Rubin helped usher in the banking deregulation that led to the current crisis. Now Paulson is riding in on his white horse to structure a plan whereby you and I bail out the shysters and con men who created the current meltdown. The recent Bear Sterns bail out is being underwritten by the US taxpayer. That’s you and me. The rich folks Bu$h cut taxes for will benefit from the bailout not us. “Shifting deficits, debts and unfair burdens to individual taxpayers while the rich and powerful become either tax escapees or big time welfare recipients keep pushing a limitless envelope on today’s and tomorrow’s taxpayers. The New York Times’ prize-winning reporter David Cay Johnston, has written two books ‘Perfectly Legal’ and just recently, the best seller ‘Free Lunch’ that document these megatrends of corporate socialism—privatizing corporate profits and socializing corporate losses on the backs of individual taxpayers.” Bailout Bonanza By Ralph Nader

Bailout Bonanza

Why is it social programs for the masses like Social Security and Medicare are considered passe and un-AmeriKKKan, while corporate welfare is the order of the day? How is it rich white boys who ruin their companies, stiff their shareholders while simultaneously wrecking the US economy don’t do a day in jail? How is it hard working but gullible folks who lose or are in the process of losing their homes, cars and feeble grip on the mythical AmeriKKKan Dream can’t get help or support from the government? How is it people scuffling to hold on to what they’ve got, who’re slipping between the cracks of an imploding economy get no sympathy or assistance while the people who ripped them off, who are responsible for creating this mess and passing toxic high risk debt onto unsuspecting investors around the world, get bailed out to enable business to go on as usual? Food for thought.

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