Category Archives: Corruption

Call It What It Is: Corruption, Not Ideology

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This week the president of the United States held a press conference with the DC elite press corps. They had the opportunity to ask the president what our government is doing about the nation’s most serious problems.

There were no questions about the climate change emergency.

There were no questions about the 400,000+ Americans killed by cigarettes each year.

There were no questions about ways to get millions and millions of unemployed and hurting people into jobs.

There were no questions about what we should do about our crumbling infrastructure.

There were no questions about the huge trade deficit that drains hundreds of billions out of our economy.

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How Romney Will Do Business As President

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Remember how the Bush administration made cronies rich? Here is how Romney will run things. Mitt Romney spends big on firms tied to aides,

Mitt Romney’s campaign has directed $134.2 million to political firms with business ties to his senior staff, spotlighting the tightknit nature of his second presidential bid and the staggering sums being spent in this election.
Nine firms that are run by, or recently employed, top Romney aides have received almost a third of the $435.8 million that Romney’s campaign and a related fundraising committee have spent on operating expenses through Oct. 17, according to a Los Angeles Times analysis of federal election finance reports.

$134.2 million steered to cronies. Contrast this with Obama:

President Obama’s reelection campaign and a joint fundraising committee have paid about $5.8 million in consulting fees to companies with business ties to senior strategists, according to the finance reports.

A Romney administration will be entirely a pay-to-play corruption racket run for insider profit. They will start where Bush left off.

Crucial That You Watch This

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Murdoch’s Scandal | FRONTLINE | PBS shows how FOX corrupted UK government. This is a criminal organization, and the response here shows they are intimidating and corrupting media and government. MUST SEE.
They have obviously broken US laws against a US company bribing officials, why will Obama Justice Dept not prosecute for this? Why won’t Dems in Senate launch investigations?

More Wall Street Corruption

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Loks like good news, actually it is evidence of fraud: Splunk shares double in value on debut | Reuters

Data analytics software maker Splunk Inc’s shares doubled in value on their market debut, as it tapped investor demand for enterprise-focused companies in an otherwise weak IPO market.
Technology companies such as Splunk, Demandware Inc and Guidewire Software Inc have been doing well at the markets, even as investors shun other deals.

So you build a company, and finally you take it public, You hire an investment bank to shepherd the deal for you. This involves setting the right price and lining up buyers. They talk to various funds and get advance orders for chunks of the stock.
Let’s say you are selling 1 million shares, and the price at the IPO is set to $10. That means you raise $10 million. You pay the fees, etc, and the company has some capital to use.
So the day of the IPO the stock jumps to $20. Sounds GREAT, right? Well, actually, that means that the company could have raised $20 million, but only raised $10 million. SOMEONE got that other $10 million, though. And the investment bank you hired was supposed to set the price correctly…
Do you see where this is going? You can be 99% certain that the “someone” who took off with the missing $10 million has something to do with the investment bank that enabled the $10 million to be available this way.

Must Prosecute!

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Companies that get away with breaking rules gain advantage over ones that don’t, forcing them out of business. All that remains is corruption, extraction. So jobs move to China, private equity breaks unions, etc.
For Capitalism to Survive, Crime Must Not Pay | Next New Deal

When unequal justice prevails, the party that does not need to follow the law has a distinct competitive advantage. A corporation that knowingly breaks the law will find ways to profit through illegal means that are not available to competitors. As a consequence, the competitive playing field is biased toward the company that does not need to follow the rules.

Sympathy For The Palin

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Since watching HBO’s Game Changer I have sympathy for Sarah Palin. She was in way over her head – not really her fault.
The “old” GOP didn’t understand that today’s GOP could elect someone who really “doesn’t know anything.” So they assumed a Governor would at least read newspapers and not just right-wing blogs, watch FOX and listen to Rush Limbaugh. The new GOP just reads right-wing blogs, watches FOX and listens to Limbaugh.
A Palin, and now the problem of a government that is destroying the country, its infrastructure, its courts, all the things that businesses rely on, this is the GOP/corporate establishment’s fault. This is corporate money and careerist politician/lobbyists, just using “the base” and nurturing this culture, because they use the ignorance.
It’s also the corporate short-term thinking thing. Yeah, it was great to get tax cuts and neglect the infrastructure. Great to get people believing there’s no climate change. Great to pile up cash for yourself but let the country pile up debt.
And now it’s “later.” If you aren’t one of the very few who piled up enough cash to fly your jet off to your private island, you’re fucked along with the rest of us, in a country rules by Sarah Palins.