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Democracy has been beat down by reaganomics and the predictable concentration of wealth and power caused by such economic madness.
"We fight, get beat, rise, and fight again." Nate Greene-1780
We can still win back and restore our democracy............ OCCUPY!
You so underestimate us P. Unless you only use small denomination bills or coins, we know how much money you have in your pockets the moment you walk in the door. Our scanners read the chips in the money. Using the discount card makes it a little easier to identify you, but our facial recognition system will identify you quick enough. In fact, we have alot of information about you when you pull into the parking lot. Motor Vehicles provides a lot of info from your registration information. So please, you are smarter than the average democrat, but we love a challenge.
CEO pay should be limited to 50 times that of the lowest-paid worker in the company.
Constuction has many Codes to follow,tried and true methods, when new techniques arise the method is put to scrutiny.When building any society capital or other, Codes are put in place to protect from disaster decay corruption.when making stainless steal you must have the rite alloys.Ralph Nader uses eg.codes for auto industries ect.Rockefeller ran for Pres then he hired BUSH/Reagan to force Deregulation.Then all the acquisitions and mergers in the 80's using high powered money.Ceo's pay hikes ect.The farmer keeps the hen house locked, Uncle Sam was tricked by the Fox
Now the capital has gone overseas.bottom line why should Corps make 10% when in China they make 1000%.codes laws let them do this,(dereg, League Rules) then you leave buisness no choice.do or die. Build to Code, Thanks for site inspection,Hartmann's .Re regulate Build for America or build for Ceo's. Re regulate Thank you
For danhow: your comments are spot on. You might have added that at the tail end of the Iran-Contra mess, Ronnie The Popular (aka Reagan) was also using the planes that delivered the arms & equipment to the Contras to fly back here loaded with drugs which were then sold to major distributors in this country (see Norman Goldman's interviews with "Freeway Ricky" yesterday). That money, in turn, was funnelled back to the Contras as well. Funny, at the very same time Nancy Reagan was going on TV preaching "Just Say No", her husband the President was actually dealing drugs in this country. Nice, huh?
Also, wouldn't it be interesting to know how many of our troops are deployed today guarding the poppy fields in Afghanistan? 10 years ago, those fields which support about 85% of the heroin supply and which had been nearly wiped out by the Taliban, are now back in full-swing thanks to the brother of the Afghan president. That brother is the biggest drug dealer in that country. Things don't seem to have changed very much.
Hi Clarissa,
Isn't NY pretty much run by Democrats? So it seems to me, that it's Democrats keeping folks from voting.
We never have been a true democracy, but a democratic republic. The trouble is, more money means more power to control and TELL others what to think. Just as the time when kings ruled the world, the church got behind them and ordained them with the "Divine right of kings". The people did not have the power, education or organization to stand up and just say NO. IF we, as a people do not stand up now, the super rich and corporations will become our masters. Karl Marx had a very good idea in his manifesto, but it will never work because of one aspect of mankind.... GREED.
Never was a republican. But, was always surrounded by them. MM you actually might have something about the merchant knowing whether a customer is a republican or a democrat. If you use a customer discount card, as I do ...maybefoolishly..they can easily detect just who customer is...including political affiliation. I no longer use credit cards or checks..only cash..but that discount card is the trick. There is a database somewhere that shows every single thing I have ever bought. Now they will be using RFID chips, even if you don't wave it in front of a reader....they will still be able to read it ripout out of your wallet or purse.
Everyone should be paid the same and we need to recognize that we all have the same needs.Those with a great education feel they shouold get more, but if everyone were paid the same, then all of those uneducated, would be able to become educated.Let's end all discrimination.Let's have the most people possibe succeed, rather than billionaires and homeless bums.Hoarding is a mental illness-even the hoarding of wealth and power is unhealthy.Land should only be allotted to those who will work it, not to the rich who want lawns and ornamentals.Cars should be banned-so that we have nothing that sets us apart in classes of have and have nots.We all should be on public transit.How about a democracy of needs?
Well P,
You stumbled on to one of the Republican secrets. I'm able to attend the super secret meetings of top Republicans. Who are I'm sure you know, some of the top managers of major department stores. A card reader was developed that will read the chip secretly planted in voter cards. The reader can identify democrats or republicans. Because democrats are so easily duped, when one is identified, the prices are changed on the items about to be purchased an more profit is made from the unsuspecting democrat. The price change was unsuccesfully attempted on you. I believe you must have been a republican in an earlier life. Democrats are usually too dumb to catch the price changes. :))
There is another aspect which seems to be overlooked, and that is that the high compensation is to keep all the players in the game so they won't jump ship and turn state's evidence against all the crime that they and their cronies are involved in. And I imagine they all have the threat of death hanging over their heads as well, should they turn, as was evidenced by the secret services spreading deadly toxins around as a warning. And the above-board lobbying money is just the tip of the iceburg when it comes to payouts to politicians, since cash is King as the former prime minister of Canada, Brian Mulroney, proved by his incredibly crass influence peddling.
There is no doubt that the entire criminal capitalist system in the U.S. is so corrupt that it is beyond rescuing, so the only alternative left is for it to crash and burn. And I suspect that all of them know that as well, so it is rather pathetic of them to continue with their leeching wealth from society as they brazenly make a play for corporate autonomy that will see them destroy the U.S. in the vain hope that they can extricate themselves from the abyss toward which they are headed. And in the end, when they finally see the ruin to which they have brought themselves, they will finally understand how worthless is their money when they are faced with imminent extinction.
it should be obvious to the naked eye of truth that democracy is gone in America, and good luck to "We the people, getting it back. It will never be right, unitl...we all have rights, human rights to LIFE, LIBERTY AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS! and "Equal Justice UNDER THE LAW". Wake up now...http://thrivemovement.com
Please. CEOs are overpaid because their boards of directors control their compensation. Who sits on these boards? Other CEOs and their ilk, of course. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.
Regarding shareholders: I have voted against executive compensation packages for the corp in which I own a bit of stock and once worked for. My puny number of shares doesn't count for squat compared with the number of shares owned by the executives OR the number owned by shareholders who are too dull, lazy or immoral to vote against what the board proposes. Further, anyone who won't do their CEO duties for only a million or two per year is, IMHO, greedy.
There is a rule in capitalism that no one is overpaid. The only reason those CEOs get paid what they do is that the stockholders (or the owners) of the company have determined that they are worth that much. No I am not a CEO.
We are coming a point where the propoganda, the police-state style lack of civil liberties, and yes, even the billions of dollars will not be able to sway public opinion.
Petition signed . How did we let the lobbyists , corps , power brokers take over bit by bit law by law, judge by judge ? We were busy with families and jobs. Now is the time to become very well informed , read, check facts , forget ' news bites' that are misleading & many times downright false. Do not let our enemies 'define the conversation' with code words and non essential info. News media is a massive money machine So is war - big pharma and big oil . A relative few control our economy, the Fed , Wall St / bankers, lobbyists and billionaires that are secretly influencing our elections . Even foreign countries like Iran ! Thanks to' Citizens United ' ! Obama and Clinton are-were tough on Iran. Both Bush's were ' cozy with Iran ' .Reagans Iran Contra, selling them guns..making secret deals . HW Bush gave killer/ tyrant Shah of Iran safe harbor. Bin laden family ( Not Bin laden ) was flown out of the US right after 9 / 11 by GW Bush for their safety. Look it up Its all true .
A website being charged with copyright infringement, because of content posted by someone who doesn't control the site, is like a bar being charged ASCAP fees because one of its customers sang "Happy Birthday to You" inside it. The bar is just the location of the offense, not the offender.
TCW, Congress "shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members". This means that if a state election is fraudulent or elects someone that doesn't meet the Constitutional requirements of age and residence, the Congress can refuse to seat the so-called winner. It does not mean they have judicial authority over who wins an election in a state.
"They" can't wait for Depression2!
Sure, look what happens after a depression. The rich/Republicans, who will then control the bulk of all of the money and therefore can buy any/all of anything they want -- for peanuts ... literally. Chinese peanut butter futures will become the next hot commodity to trade, while the rest of us learn to survive on a par of existence that equals the citizens of China.
Good catch, Smilodon1. I've had to post that info in comments here a couple times, but I can no longer listen to the whole show since it changed time slots, and I miss some of these.
With all the cheap goods the Ceo's bring in from china
our purchasing power is strong no?,where else can you buy $2 laser pointer
or monsanto $4 bread. (the strong shall survive) letting the wise CEO
reinvest will keep us All quiet and content,cowboy Reaganomics knows whos Boss,rite Mr. FED Corp.
Rode the Tec.bubble.into the sunset Reagan did, it was all so good in the 80's, not much Ancient Sunlight left though. Thanks for the warning Mr.Hartmann
I see parallels here with the core problems we have in America. I think we need a focused effort on restoring an effective and impartial press. The fourth estate is on the ropes and neither voters nor shareholders have reliable information with which to cast their votes. We need to encourage people to reward the unbiased sources of information on what is really going on, and encourage them to reject those sources that provide intellectually dishonest representations, even if they seem like people supporting their existing opinions. If we start reading and watching the objective press and stop reading and watching the infotainment people so much, ad revenues will shift to the people providing real and honest information you can use for better voting. When the opinion poles start to show candidates an informed voter, the candidates with integrity will conclude they can afford to run a campaign and have a chance to win.
The same is true in the board room, with some higher hurdles on voting, but perhaps lower hurdles on information. If we can get these advisory votes recently established to reject the cases where the board has not used the proper quality of compensation analysis, and simply cannot make the case for the pay packages proposed, they'll either have to lower the pay or make a better case.
A top flight CEO with rare skills and rare preparation may find themselves in the right place at the right time and actually be worth tens of millions of dollars to a company for a while. But how often that is the case and how long its true would need to be demonstrated in credible compensation analysis to avoid the rejection of a pay proposal.
Let's hope this keeps moving in the right direction!
When Saddam Houssein was executed his head didn't come off. It was one of his supporters who was grossly overweight that it happened to. I saw the video of the execution.
It seems odd to me that the right is attacking the President for making contraception an election year topic. This is a fight solely brought on by the Catholic clergy. Fully 98% of their own congregation ignores the policy. I can't imagine 98% of jews eating pork, or 98% of Hindus eating cows, or 98% of Christian Scientists seeking medical attention. Why should the US government help the Catholic church control their own flock, much less subject the rest of us to their beliefs?
This is not an election year ploy; it's a health issue passed by Congress three years ago. And it's not an attack on Christianity; it's a fight with the male-only 1% of a religion that seeks to impose their beliefs on the rest of our society, the rhetoric of which, (comparing our President to Hitler and Stalin), is an insult to our whole community.
I have seen a couple of article's that point out that SCOTUS did not have the authority to rule on congressional election reform. After reading the constitution (as a layman) it states that congress is the only "body" in the government that can control its election process. It seems very clear and concise. Of course it was also clear about the 2000 presidential election debacle.
My questions are; If in fact, the Court overstepped their authority, what if anything could be done about it? Or, is this a case of the horse before the cart and we don't really need a constitutional amendment to change corporate person-hood because congress and the court have once again not read the rule book.