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Gary Younge - 6 May 2012

Shortly after Mitt Romney's failed 2008 campaign for the Republican nomination his son Tagg set up a private equity fund with the campaign's top fundraiser. One of the first donors was his mum... Tagg had no experience in the world of finance, but after two years in the middle of a deep recession the company had netted $244m from just 64 investors.

Tagg insists that neither his name nor the fact that his father had made it clear he would run for the presidency again had anything to do with his success. ...

Class privilege, and the power it confers, is often conveniently misunderstood by its beneficiaries as the product of their own genius rather than generations of advantage, stoutly defended and faithfully bequeathed. ...

The evidence has laid bare the...web of social, familial and personal ties between the political, corporate and legal forces that govern a country...

We now know that James Murdoch met with David Cameron 12 times between January 2006 and January 2010 – eight times for dinner, twice for breakfast, once for lunch and once for drinks. Between May 2010 and July 2011 there were also more than 60 meetings between ministers and either Rupert Murdoch, his son James, the then News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks or James Harding, the editor of the Times. That averages around one a week. We know there were more, but not all were logged as such by Downing Street. ...

Two things make this a matter of import as well as intrigue. The first is the lie it gives to the insistence on meritocracy at a time of acute economic crisis when benefits are slashed, the poor hammered. ... The issue here is not class envy but class entrenchment. The fact that they were born rich is irrelevant. They had no choice in the matter. But the fact that they appear to want to give even more to those who already have a great deal while denying much to those who have little is unforgiveable.

murdoch_empire shenanigans plutocracy

Who are the biggest players in the 2012 presidential campaign?

infographics plutocracy

A controversial Montana ruling that distinguished Citizens United and upheld corporate campaign restrictions in the state could give the U.S. Supreme Court an opportunity to revisit the issue, according to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. ...

The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission found that corporations have a First Amendment right to expressly support political candidates with independent spending. The Montana Supreme Court said it wasn’t bound by Citizens United, partly because of the state’s unique history of political corruption.

...Ginsburg’s statement appears to refer to large amounts of money spent by super PACs after Citizens United. Corporations and wealthy persons have contributed millions of dollars to such PACs, which outspend candidates by 2-1, according to an estimate by an ad tracking firm.

plutocracy

At a time when it’s become a cliché to say that Occupy Wall Street has changed the nation’s political conversation — drawing long overdue attention to the struggles of the 99 percent — electoral politics and the 2012 presidential election have become almost exclusively defined by the 1 percent. Or, to be more precise, the .0000063 percent. Those are the 196 individual donors who have provided nearly 80 percent of the money raised by super PACs in 2011 by giving $100,000 or more each.

These political action committees, spawned by the Supreme Court’s 5-4 Citizens United decision in January 2010, can raise unlimited amounts of money from individuals, corporations or unions for the purpose of supporting or opposing a political candidate. ...

If 2008 was the year of the small donor, when many political pundits (myself included) predicted that the fusion of grass-roots organizing and cyber-activism would transform how campaigns were run, then 2012 is “the year of the big donor,” when a candidate is only as good as the amount of money in his super PAC.

plutocracy

It's undeniable Gingrich would be out were it not for a single large donor and SuperPAC support, and that has Republicans seeing a problem with SuperPAC money, what with him being Newt and all.

plutocracy

Trust him, he knows. As someone who worked 14 hour days, seven days a week, plus taking a full college course load, he definitely knows what it's like to support yourself on minimum wage. Except for the part where he wasn't paying rent or supporting anyone. ...

Think Progress [link] cites the inconvenient data about how "a nontrivial fraction of workers" actually do spend a significant part of their working lives at or right near the minimum wage, and how this disproportionately affects women, people of color, and less educated people.

plutocracy

West Haven, Connecticut, which has closed four school buildings over the past two years and fired 14 teachers to help cut its budget deficit, is about to pay Moody’s Investors Service almost double what it cost six years ago for a credit rating.

Joseph Mancini, finance director for the city of 55,000 near Yale University, says he has no choice other than to meet the demands of Moody’s after the municipality’s bonds were downgraded to Baa1 in January, three levels above junk, from A2.

“The market’s going to punish us for the rating we’re at,” Mancini said in a telephone interview. “If we didn’t get it rated, we would be punished even more.”

Four years after faulty ratings helped trigger the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s are as dominant as ever, boosting fees at a faster rate than inflation as new competition promised by lawmakers failed to materialize.

plutocracy

The Congressional Budget Office has officially confirmed what we already knew: The income distribution has been getting more unequal in recent decades. A new report (PDF) on changes in the distribution of income from 1979 to 2007 shows that average income for the top 1 percent "grew by 275 percent between 1979 and 2007." In the same time period, the rest of the top 20 percent saw their average income grow by 65 percent. Those in the middle—60 percent of Americans—had average income growth of just under 40 percent. And, of course, the 20 percent with the lowest income saw the smallest income growth between 1979 and 2007, at just 18 percent.

Government policy increased the tilt toward the very richest:...

class_warfare plutocracy

An unlikely scene emerged at a Republican conference Thursday afternoon: a tea party congressman deplored corporate tax-dodging, and the conservative audience responded with cheers. ...

Thursday’s scene displayed just how fed up Americans of all ideologies are with corporate tax cheats. ...

Labrador aside, most Republican politicians have dismissed or even encouraged corporate tax dodging.

plutocracy

...Eric Cantor...has denounced “mobs” and “the pitting of Americans against Americans.” ...Mitt Romney accusing the protesters of waging “class warfare,” while Herman Cain calls them “anti-American.” My favorite, however, is Senator Rand Paul, who for some reason worries that the protesters will start seizing iPads, because they believe rich people don’t deserve to have them. ...

...wealthy Americans who benefit hugely from a system rigged in their favor react with hysteria to anyone who points out just how rigged the system is.

Last year, you may recall, a number of financial-industry barons went wild over very mild criticism from President Obama. They denounced Mr. Obama as being almost a socialist for endorsing the so-called Volcker rule, which would simply prohibit banks backed by federal guarantees from engaging in risky speculation. And as for their reaction to proposals to close a loophole that lets some of them pay remarkably low taxes — well, Stephen Schwarzman, chairman of the Blackstone Group, compared it to Hitler’s invasion of Poland.

...Wall Street’s Masters of the Universe... [are] not John Galt; they’re not even Steve Jobs. They’re people who got rich by peddling complex financial schemes that, far from delivering clear benefits to the American people, helped push us into a crisis whose aftereffects continue to blight the lives of tens of millions of their fellow citizens.

2011_protests united_states occupywallstreet plutocracy

The hidden infrastructure of the 2012 campaign has already been built.

A handful of so-called Super PACs, enabled to collect unlimited donations by the continued erosion of campaign finance regulations, are expected to rival the official campaign organizations in importance this election. In many cases, these groups are acting essentially as outside arms of the campaigns.

These are America's best-funded political factions, their war chests filled by some of the richest men (and almost all are men) in the country.

More than 80 percent of giving to Super PACs so far has come from just 58 donors, according to the Center for Responsive Politics  analysis of the latest data, which covers the first half of 2011.

plutocracy

Rep. Luis Gutierrez of Illinois lays out Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner over the issue of why most of the TARP bailout money went to Wall Street banks rather than homeowners who were foreclosed on. Members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus have been unhappy with the Obama Administration for some of the same reason a few CBC members have.

real_estate_crisis plutocracy

“I expended a lot of political capital to keep the banks afloat, and I have the scars to prove it. And I still think it was the right thing to do, because otherwise our economy would have been worse off.” This is the President taking ownership of TARP, which did not pass under his Presidency but which he whipped as a candidate for President in 2008. He took ownership of the extraordinary financial support given to banks as they teetered on the verge of collapse. And this is a central grievance of the protesters on Wall Street and across the country.

2011_protests united_states occupywallstreet plutocracy

There are plenty of grounds for legal action [against alleged Wall Street crooks]. Contrary to the Obama/Geithner position, this is a target rich environment. And some of the violations were persistent and deliberate enough that they might well raise to the level of being criminal. This is a mere illustrative tally: [specific list of regulations which have probably been broken] ...

As readers know, it isn’t that there is no case against the major banks, it’s that the Administration is determined not to make it. ...

Pretty much everyone who is not part of the problem instinctively knows that [a slew of public arrests] needed to happen. Yet Obama and other members of the elite keep trying to placate the protestors by acknowledging that they have legitimate concerns while refusing to take needed corrective steps.

2011_protests united_states occupywallstreet class_warfare plutocracy real_estate_crisis shenanigans

Watch Congresswoman Donna Edwards discuss her new Amendment to overturn the Citizens United ruling and restore the people's power to limit corporate spending on elections.

call_for_action plutocracy video

...We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.
As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; ...and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. ...
They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.
They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.
They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one's skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation. ...
To the people of the world,
We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.
Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.
To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.

2011_protests united_states plutocracy occupywallstreet

92%: The percentage of foreclosures "on bankrupt families in and around New York City [for which there was] no proof the creditors had the right to foreclose."

real_estate_crisis plutocracy class_warfare corruption

Rick Perry says a lot of crazy shit, but the most interesting piece of Perry stupidity that I’ve seen is what he tried to do with the HPV vaccine in Texas. Perry mandated that all sixth grade girls in Texas be vaccinated with Merck’s Gardasil vaccine in 2007, a decision that he’s only now walking back.

Providing HPV vaccine for those who can’t afford it, and educating parents and children about the benefits of the vaccine are both positive, progressive policy steps. Mandating vaccination for a disease that can only be sexually transmitted is certainly something any real conservative wouldn’t support. But when Perry’s friends at Merck told him to jump, he jumped as high as he possibly could...

plutocracy healthcare

I can’t wait till next November, when the party that wants to cut Social Security and Medicare squares off against the party that wants to cut Social Security and Medicare while raising taxes slightly.

plutocracy

Some may recall that back in May news broke of an Aaron's Inc. (AAN) franchisee remotely spying on users with a webcam to make sure they were making payments [for the computers rented to them by AAN]. The incident led to one outraged couple filing suit against the company, seeking class action status.

...the judge refused to grant a preliminary injunction, which would have banned [AAN] from both continuing to monitor users...and from conducting activities to obfuscate which computers had the spykit installed. ...

The court rules that that the plaintiffs don't have the computer any more and thus are no longer suffering harm and that they provided insufficient evidence to demonstrate that other members of the potential class are currently suffering harm. ...

...while most in the public would understandably be repulsed and outraged at a company taking pictures of a family in a private setting, remote monitoring is a gray area of the law...

privacy plutocracy