After some 30 posts on “The Far Right Threat to Democracy” – it is time to revisit a major part of their strategy to enrich the top 1%. Simple!!!! Just “educate” Americans…..teach them that the rules and norms of the unprecedented middle class golden era of prosperity, 1947-73, were wrong…were “distortions’ of the Founders’ “original intent”….were “socialism,” or even worse “communism.”
There were no American billionaires in 1956, at the height of American global economic power. By 2024, there are a reported 1,400 American billionaires. The wealth and income of the top 1% are at unprecedented levels. AND – more and more “ordinary” Americans in the lower 60% are living paycheck-to-paycheck. More and are running up credit card debt – and, of course, paying extortionist “late fee” penalties – to the same people who caused the 2008 Crash.

This post will begin to give YOU some of what YOU show know about how YOU, and other good Americans, were brainwashed by DELIBERATE LIES by the Far Radical Right. They have twisted and cherrypicked American legal, political, and economic history – to come up with PARTIAL TRUTHS that “prove” their false “facts.”

We begin with Jane Mayer”s “Dark Money” and Nancy MacLean’s “Democracy in Chains.

Mayer”. “During the 1970s, a handful of the nation’s wealthiest corporate captains felt overtaxed and overregulated and decided to fight back..they launched an ambitious, privately financed war of ideas to radically change the country. They didn’t want merely to win elections; they wanted to change how Americans thought.”
[STOP HERE: “change how Americans thought.” Think hard on this.]

Mayer: “As the Olin and Bradley Foundations had demonstrated, and as Charles Koch’s early blueprint for advancing libertarianism showed, winning the hearts and minds of college students had long been a core strategy on the right.”
[“core strategy on the right”]

Mayer: The Kochs. were also directing millions of dollars into online education, and into teaching high school students, through a nonprofit..Charles devised called the Young Entrepreneurs Academy.”..
“At the June summit, Stowers stressed to..donors..this “investment” in education had created a valuable “talent pipeline.” Assuming..thousands of scholars on average taught hundreds of students per year, they could influence the thinking of millions of young American annually.”
[an “investment” to “influence the thinking of millions of young Americans annually.”

MacLean: “..in our time, governors and state legislators under the influence of the capitalist radical right have been moving aggressively to transform public higher education..After 2010, as the Koch-funded project moved forward in the states, its representatives sought to slash their state’s public university budgets while simultaneously raising tuition, ending need-based scholarships, limiting or curtailing tenure protections, reducing faculty governance, and undermining support for the liberal arts curriculum [particularly those parts..most known for dissent]. In each case, Republican-appointed members of the university governing boards acted with unprecedented speed while at the same time limiting deliberations…In North Carolina, Louisiana, Mississippi, Iowa, and Wisconsin, they shoved out chancellors who would not do their bidding.”
[reread this! just in YOUR local news – how much of this is happening at YOUR state’s colleges?? WHY the attack on “liberal arts” curriculum, “particularly those parts..most known for dissent”! Isn’t one purpose of college to train the minds of young people how to think – meaning if they do, they might ask questions? Are questions “bad”?}

MacLean: the blueprint for the right’s plan to transform public higher education: “..turn state universities into dissent-free suppliers of trained labor, run with firm managerial hands and with little or no input from faculty, and at the lowest possible cost to taxpayers..if you stop making college free and charge hefty tuition..you ensure..students will have a strong economic incentive to focus on their studies and nothing else: certainly not on trying to alter the university or the wider society..also arguing for something else; educating far fewer Americans, particularly lower-income..who could not afford full-cost tuition and telling businesspeople who tended to dominate governing boards..it was time to get tough with their wards, faculty and students alike.”
[ much of this has ALREADY happened, especially students concentrating on getting only a focused degree as “trained labor’ for corporations. Even schools in “blue’ states are stripping out ‘soft” subjects found in the liberal arts}

MacLean:

We, the People, call Sarah Chayes to testify about “On Corruption in America. And What Is At Stake”

[note: following are samples from Chayes’ book, “On Corruption in America. Serious American patriots will also see: for an intro summary: “The United States Has a Dirty-Money Problem” [Anne Applebaum; The Atlantic; Jan-Feb, 2022]; “How Kleptocracy Came to America” [Franklin Foer; The Atlantic; Mar, 2019]; “Kleptopia. How Dirty Money is Conquering the World” [ Tom Burgis ]; “American Kleptocracy. How the United states Created the World’s Greatest Money Laundering Scheme in History” [ Casey Michel ]; “Corruption in America” [ Zephyr Teachout ]

Chayes: “For the United states, two books..”Dark Money,” by ..Jane Mayer, and “Democracy in Chains,” by..Nancy MacLean, are must-reads for any American citizen. Through pains-taking, even dangerous sleuthing, the authors chart..development of a U.S. integrated kleptocratic network like..ones that dominate..many developing countries. It is the most sophisticated, powerful, and threatening such organism to anchor itself in the United States since the Gilded Age.”
“..its hydra ..[contains].. captains of the most lucrative industries in the country – fossil fuels, private investment firms..the tobacco industry, and such trademarks as Amway, Home Depot, and Coors..At its center..the multi-billionaire energy, mining, and chemical mogul Charles Koch.”…
Koch and his network allies..financed programs or whole schools within leading universities..Mercatus Center..Hoover Institute..the group has seated thousands of public officials, from state legislators and members of Congress..judges..bureaucrats who do most of the work in federal, state, and local agencies.”

Chayes: “Career paths of network members snake through..different entities and sectors, knitting them together. The aim is “to get top operatives exposed to..different elements,” MacLean told me. “People shuttle from one to another: the corporate side, various nonprofit advocacy groups, the leading academic centers, and government itself.” The result, boasts an operative quoted by Mayer, is “a fully integrated network.”
“..on former insider [on] what this hydra wants..there is independence, but they have a “common cause. And it is frightening. They want private, not democratic, control of the country’s resources.”
“MacLean pits it this way: “They want to protect their infinite wealth-accumulation from democracy. they want permanent, radical rules changes that would shackle the majority’s ability to chart our collective future. Up to and including changing the Constitution.”

Chayes: “I’ve heard that for years,’ confirms the insider. “They are pushing for a Constitutional convention so they can rewrite the Commerce Clause, to make federal labor laws like child protections or the minimum wage impossible.” The aim, writes MacLean, is to lock in “the kind of political economy that prevailed in America in the opening of the 20th century” – ..the Gilded Age.”
“This network operates on the terrain of ideas..plays a long game. Capitalizing for calls for civics education in high school..members are moving to reorient the nation’s moral compass. “They want to imbue kids with market-based morality,’ says the former insider..the notion..everything is worth, in moral terms, the price it can fetch – that there is no such thing as a sacred value.”

Chayes: “Every kleptocratic network I have examined..has included a skein of outright criminals. Drug traffickers sit down with..brothers or sons of presidents..and strike business deals. Smugglers move taxed consumer goods, uncounted and unweighed, across borders for a network that may include the head of customs enforcement. Or they move guns or sex workers.”

Chayes; “..kleptocratic networks want the power..to write the rules of the collective game..in many U.S. states, congressional elections are rigged..Republican strategist Karl Rove..broadcast the principle in a 2010 Wall Street Journal op-ed..”He Who Controls Redistricting Can Control Congress”. [note: for perspective, think on this: “It’s not the people who vote that count. It’s the people who count the votes.” – Joseph Stalin ]

Chayes: “..kleptocratic networks..disguise their members and activities..They distract and disorganize potential grassroots opposition. In an examination of seven anticorruption insurrections on five continents, the tactic I found most common – and most effective – was to deliberately enflame identity-based divisions that could pit groups..against one another.” [note: for perspective, see right-wing tactics in America since l968]

Chayes: “..when practices that benefit kleptocratic networks are mainstreamed, those networks take it as an invitation to keep pushing..Once one set of values and advantages has been normalized, they seek more. The 1994 Gingrich revolution can be seen in this light..the bipartisan plunge into naked influence peddling since 1990, the breathtaking absence of prosecutions after the 2008 financial disaster, and..amid the Trump administration’s open marriage of public and private criminal sectors in an astonishing replication of third-world kleptocracies, the astronomical handout to networked insiders delivered by coronavirus emergency measures on his watch.”

Chayes: “..[the] most consequential event of [1990s] was the collapse of the Soviet Union..[which]..helped launch the resurgence of kleptocracy around the world. First, they unleashed a powerful, ruthless, and adaptive new type of network..criminals forged alliances with managers of state-owned factories…[third]..was a budding business sector..Quoting Jon Winer..”seamless webs..between criminals..and political and bureaucratic elites..out of these seamless webs has emerged a triangle of crime, business and politics [that is] extremely strong and resilient.”
“So was born the type of dynamic, multitalented, shape-shifting hydra that now sits atop kleptocracies the world over.”

Chayes: “Limiting money in politics must be citizens’ top priority. the power of campaign donations to determine political outcomes is the primary factor allowing kleptocratic networks to dominate us.” [note: please see U.S. “supreme court” decisions on “Buckley,” “Bellotti,” “Citizens United”. which give corporations ability to buy elections with legally laundered money]

Chayes: Dismissing corruption: June 27, 2016…”McDonnell v. United States”…”Thus did the unanimous Supreme Court transform a broad, commonsense definition of bribery into something narrow and technical…Never mind the false equivalency. Never mind..most “citizens with legitimate concerns’ do not dispose of tens of thousands of dollars or Ferraris they can loan to help focus officials’ attention on those concerns. Never mind..it is hard to describe ramming an obviously questionable drug through clinical trials as a “legitimate” concern. Letting the McDonnell conviction stand opined the justices would mean criminalizing politics – at least politics as currently practiced.”
“..another false equivalency. The panelists are lumping McDonnell and high rollers of his stripe together with the destitute or disadvantaged people arrested every day..”

Chayes: “..McDonnell was changing law.. Prosecutors scrambled to amend indictments they had filed..convictions of two powerful politicians on both sides of New York stste’s notorious political machinery – for crimes including bribery, extortion, conspiracy, money laundering – were reversed because of McDonnell..”
“..bribery convictions fell by nearly one-third between 2014 and 2018..”An overall change in the atmosphere leaves a lot more behavior free of prosecution now..”
“Master is pointing to what may be the most damaging effect of decisions like McDonnell: the implicit blessing they bestow on a whole range of practices.”

Chayes: “Perhaps the most extreme example of McDonnell logic was the argument..by Alan Dershowitz..representing President Trump at his impeachment trial..A quid quo pro [the essence of bribery] could not be impeachable..if the official believed..the item of value he was receiving for an official act he performed would benefit the national interest as well as himself…the post-McDonnell narrowing of the concept of corruption took another step…On May 7, 2020, the Supreme Court unanimously overturned convictions in the notorious “Bridgegate” case..The admitted objective was to push the mayor of a town on the New Jersey end of the bridge for failing to endorse Governor Christie’s re-election bid.”

Chayes: “In the United States, serious and damaging public corruption is not getting punished. That means, by default, that we deem it to be just fine.”

Chayes: “Chief Justice John Roberts..in McDonnell..: “There is no doubt..this case is distasteful. But our concern is..with the broader legal implications of the Government’s boundless interpretation of the federal bribery statute.”…
“This is how corruption gets overlooked in the United States. This is how the wealthier and better educated Americans downplay it. They cast it as an embarrassing aberration, a scandal beneath mention, shrugged off with a roll of the eyes.”
“But to regard corruption this way is to dangerously underestimate its significance. Corruption is not an isolated scandal or even a whole stack of them. Corruption is better understood as the deliberate mode of functioning – the operating system..- of sophisticated, and astonishingly successful networks.””

Chayes: “What makes these networks so effective is their ability to weave across what most people think of as separate, even antagonistic segments of society: job creators and regulators, law-enforcement professionals and the out-and-out criminals they are sworn to combat. These apparent foes in fact work arm in arm within the powerful webs that promote corrupt practices. That integration across boundaries is the most fundamental pattern I observed in foreign countries.”
“By including members from all these walks of life. corrupt networks can command a vast array of talents, tools and resources in pursuit of their single-minded objective: making money for their members, no matter the cost to other people or things.”..

Chayes: “For Justice Roberts and his seven colleagues..manifestations of this phenomenon in the United States are beneath their concern. In their view, the American system is threatened not by corruption but – incredibly – by efforts to FIGHT corruption..the Justice Department’s “boundless interpretation” of bribery laws..”
“They could not have been more wrong. At the very moment they were dismissing corruption..corruption was poised to upend the U.S. presidential contest.”..

Chayes: “..Trump’s drain-the-swamp administration proceeded to crystallize and put into practice – in barefaced ways unseen in the United States for a century – exactly the type of systematic corruption Americans decry..using their privileged positions to gain advantage for the businesses they continued to run..”
“Meanwhile, the big business strand of America’s emerging kleptocratic network was awarded control of the agencies whose job is to protect the public from the worst effects of those businesses’ profit-seeking practices..executives and lobbyists-turned-government officials went straight to work rewriting the rules in ways designed to maximize the gush of money into their collective coffers..”

Chayes: “McDonnell..didn’t just happen. It came at the end of a series of cases….McNally v. United States [1987]..the defendants were convicted…affirmed on appeal, for violating federal mail-and-wire fraud statutes…the Supreme Court..overturn[ed]..7-2…”Defraud, they decreed, could only mean “obtain money or property” by fraud, nothing other. The American people were stripped of their actionable right to the basic integrity of their public servants.”..

[note: now – go back and reread – slowly – virtually every paragraph. Chayes is telling YOU the corruption she witnessed in other nations has come to America – and that “the hydra” is a cancer that will kill American democracy unless YOU and loyalAmericans like YOU decide to DO SOMETHING – like vote out the crooks passing corrupt laws. Notice WHO we’re talking about: the Rich and the Corporations !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The 20th century was about creating a true democracy in America. The threats to this democracy – the Rich and their Corporations want to take YOU back to 1865-1901, “the Gilded Age.” Chayes and other investigators have told YOU all YOU need to know. The question is this: do YOU care???? Do YOU care what happens to YOUR kids and YOUR grandchildren???? ] 0

Please consider the following on judging how the American Dream has been stolen – so a few fortunate people, already reich – could become obscenely rich:

1] “unfortunately Smith’s book {Wealth of Nations} is sometimes used, as is the Bible or the Koran, to justify a deeply held position by selectively extracting supportive quotations. In Smith’s case he is cited by some as the patron saint of laissez-faire…Smith believes in liberty. But his view is much more nuanced than “liberty is all.” Smith believed that liberty without justice is a road to serfdom under “Lord Factions” or to chaos.” [Hanley, ed.: “Adam Smith’]

2] U.K. chief rabbi Jonathan Sacks: “When everything that matters can be bought and sold, when commitments can be broken because they are no longer to our advantage, when shopping becomes salvation and advertising slogans become our litany, when our worth is measured by how much we earn and spend, then the market is destroying the very virtue on which in the long run it depends.” [Bogle: “The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism”]

3]. Lee Atwater, 1988 Republican presidential campaign manager, on the 1980 Reagan campaign: “We were able to make the establishment, insofar as it is bad, the government. In other words, big government was the enemy, not big business. If..people think the problem is..taxes are too high, and the government interferes too much, then we are doing our job. But if they get to the point where they say..the real problem is..rich people aren’t paying taxes..then the Democrats are going to be in good shape.”

4] “..Citizens United is to the expansion of corporate power what the big bang was to the singularity. It’s the whole universe. The high court took a narrow issue and, in a remarkably brazen act of judicial activism by judges who assert their disdain for judges doing more than narrowly interpreting the law, the majority gave political rights to corporations. It is crucial to appreciate what this means in terms of giving a megaphone to the richest among us to drown out competing points of view…The decision in Citizens United to allow corporations to spend unlimited sums to influence elections poses a grave threat not just to the economic wellbeing of Americans, but to the continuation of our democracy.” [D.C. Johnston: “The Fine Print”]

5] “The goal of the Madison Fund..detailed in {Charles} Murray’s 2015 book “By the People: Rebuilding Liberty Without Permission,” is to refuse voluntary compliance with federal laws so as to make it excessively costly for government to enforce them. “I want to pour sugar into the regulatory state’s gas tank,” Murray explains.” [“American Amnesia”]

6]. “Democracy is a way of life controlled by a working faith in the possibilities of human nature…This faith may be enacted in statutes, but it is only on paper unless it is put in force in the attitudes which human beings display to one another in all the incidents and relations of daily life.” [John Dewey]

7]. “..Jonathan Gruber, who had designed Romneycare, recalled: “I told them..you can either try to expand coverage or you can do something to control costs. But trying to control costs too much dooms whatever you do, because the lobbyists will kill you. That’s what happened to Hillary in 1993.” The industry will happily allow universal coverage, “because that creates more customers. What it won’t allow is cost control.” [“America’s Bitter Pill”]
[note: hopefully, any doubts YOU have about high medical care costs are eliminated]

8]. James C. Callaway, wealthy Texas oil man: “When it gets to spending money, it all goes to one thing – helping your guy win the election…It was wrong and I’m ashamed of it. I never promised anything, but I knew good and well people do not give $100,000 at a pop without expecting anything.” Asked about the claim..money buys access but not influence, he responds: “I don’t believe that for a minute.” He says people give to influence candidates.” [“Selling Out”]

9]. “..there is no way to access infinite wealth without rigging the system. No one becomes a billionaire honestly.”
[ Sarah Chayes: “On Corruption In America”]

10] Justice Noah Swayne [1874; Trist -v – Child]: “if any of the great corporations..were to hire adventurers.. to procure the passage of a general law with a view to the promotion of their private interests, the moral sense of every right-minded man would instinctively denounce the employer and employed as steeped in corruption, and the employment as infamous.” [Whitehouse: “The Scheme How The Right Wing Used Dark Money to Capture the Supreme Court’]

11] I Timothy 6: “The love of money is the root of all evil.”

We, the People, continue with a sampling of more, NEVER-ENDING reminders of how the Rich and their corporations continue to find a never-ending number of ways to cheat people like. YOU…..

1] “Target joins beef suit against Cargill, others” “Class action filed in Minneapolis against four giant meatpackers alleges price gouging.” [Christopher Vondracek, Brooks Johnson; Star Tribune; 2/24/2024]

2] “Leaked records show vast hidden wealth” “The leak of records, mainly from the British Virgin Islands, the Cook Islands and Singapore, covers 2.5 million files about..120,000 offshore companies and trusts and nearly 130,000 individuals and agents, including the wealthiest people in more than 170 countries…wealthy individuals may have as much as $32 trillion in undisclosed wealth stashed in oversea havens.” [Rick Gladstone; N. y. Times; 4/5/2013]

3]. “California court: Starbucks, others must pay for workers’ off-clock time” “..must pay workers for minutes they routinely spend off the clock on tasks such as locking up or setting the store alarm, the state Supreme Court ruled..unanimous..” [Sudhin Thanawala; Associated Press; 7/27/2018]

4]. “Lawsuit alleges drug firms funded terrorism in Iraq” “[DOJ] is investigating claims..major drug and medical device companies..knew the free medicines and supplies they gave the government to win business there would be used to underwrite terrorist attacks on American troops” [Gardner Harris; N.Y. Times; 8/2/2018]

5] “Companies paying for fraud, but execs aren’t” July, 2012] GlaxoSmithKline said it would pay $3 billion to settle criminal and civil accusations of drug marketing and pricing fraud [against the U.S. gov’t]” [Michael Schmidt, Edward Wyatt, N.Y. Times; 8/8/2012]

6]. “Witness details tax evasion by millionaires” “A man wanted by Liechtenstein for leaking secret banking information that. identified millionaire tax cheats across Europe and the United States has described to congressional investigators how money was concealed.” [Desmond Butler; Associated Press; 7/18/2008]

7] “Bank of America fined millions – again” ‘..more than $250 million in refunds and fines after federal regulators found the company systematically..overcharged customers, withheld promised bonuses and opened accounts without customer approval.” [Tory Newmeyer; Washington Post; 7/12/2023]

8] “Justice Department files civil complaint against eBay” “..claiming the online marketplace unlawfully sold and distributed hundreds of thousands of products such as pesticides and motor vehicle emission-evading devices that violate environmental laws.” [Michelle Chapman; Associated Press; 9/29/2023]

9] “J & J refiles for baby powder bankruptcy” “..first attempt at using bankruptcy to escape claims..its popular baby powder caused cancer was an expensive gamble that drew public scorn and ended in failure.” [Steven Church, Jeff Feeley; Bloomberg News; 4/6/2023]

10] “Qwest execs sold high” “Top dogs made millions while exaggerating company profits..employees, retirees, and other investors who’ve held the stock have seen its value plunge over 90%…Thousands of Qwest employees have lost their jobs..” [David Leonhardt; N.Y. Times; 7/31/2002]

11] “Ex-Goldman Sachs trader found guilty”. ‘..pleaded guilty to concealing an unauthorized $8.3 billion trading position in 2007, causing the bank to lose $118.4 million”. [4/4/2013]

12] “2 years in prison for money manager who stole $365K from vets” “..a Georgia man was sentenced..for exploiting and financially damaging four disabled Minnesota veterans..” [Paul Walsh; Star Tribune; 11/11/2020]

13]. “Tyson, Perdue to pay $35 million to settle lawsuit from farmers” “..a lawsuit that accused them and several other firms of conspiring to dominate the industry and fix the price paid to farmers..” [Josh Funk; Associated Press; 9/5/2021]

[note – next time YOU. hear propaganda about “government overreach,” “unelected bureaucrats,’ “IRS thugs,” etc. – think, exactly who has the power to hold all these corporate crooks accountable???????????? The above list of victims of corporate crimes and abuses is. A. SMALL. SAMPLE. of what goes on. EVERY. DAY.
We’re all afraid of “street crime,” BUT. “suite crime” does more damage to YOU and America. – and. – they are MORE LIKELY TO GET AWAY WITH IT. – political and economic power, secrecy, expensive lawyers & accountants, etc.
In many ways, American democracy and the “American Dream” are being sabotaged from within – by the “usual suspects” – the ever greedy Rich and the increasingly imperious corporations.]

We, the People, call upon Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz to testify about “How Today’s Divided Society Endangers Our Future.”

[note: the following testimony is from Stiglitz’ book, “The Price of Inequality.” A subsequent post will cover Stiglitz” thoughts on “People, Power, and Profits” – from which the first quote is from:]

Stiglitz: “In America’s money-driven politics..bankers..used their wealth to get rules that allowed them to make ever more money at the expense of others, through deregulation, and when that failed miserably, they used their influence to get the largest public bailout in the history of the world, while letting those..they had preyed on, homeowners and workers alike, to largely fend for themselves.”….
“The shortsightedness and moral turpitude of our money-focused bankers spread, infecting our economy, our politics, and our society. In many ways, it has changed who we are, making so many Americans more materialistic, more selfish, and more shortsighted.”
[Note: please reread this again – many times. Dwell on every thought. The corruption our Founders so feared and
worked to prevent has been DELIBERATELY inflicted on America, like a malignant cancer.]

Stiglitz: “One reason the invisible hand may be invisible is that it is simply not there.”

Stiglitz: “American inequality didn’t just happen. It was created..Much of the inequality that exists today is a result of government policy, both what..government does and what it does not do.”

Stiglitz: “Widely unequal societies do not function efficiently, and their economies are neither stable nor sustainable in the long term..We know how extremes of inequality play out because too many countries have gone down this path..The experience of Latin America, their region..with the highest level of inequality, foreshadows what lies ahead.”

Stiglitz: “Of all the costs imposed on our society by the top 1%, perhaps the greatest is this: the erosion of our sense of identity in which fair play, equality of opportunity, and a sense of community are so important…our democracy is being put at peril.” [Note: “put at peril” for amoral, immoral, obscene. G R E E D.]

Stiglitz: “Cooperation and trust are important in every sphere of society..most good behavior is voluntary..throughout history..economies that flourished are those where a man’s word is his honor..trust underlies all notions of social capital..Social capital is the glue that holds societies together. In America there has been at the forefront of the trend. An entire industry that was once based on trust has lost it.”
“The breaking of the social bonds and trust – seen in our politics, in oir financial sector, and in the workplace – will inevitably, have broader societal consequences…By allowing inequality to metastasize unchecked, America is choosing a path of destruction os social capital, if not societal conflict..”…
“We tell the truth because it is the right or moral thing to do..”

Stiglitz: “The central argument is..the model that best describes income determination at the top is not one based on individual’s contributions to society…Much of the income at the top is instead what we have called rents. These rents have moved dollars from the bottom and middle to the top, and distorted the market to the advantage of some and to the disadvantage of others.”

Stiglitz: “A central theme..is..there has been a battle of ideas – over what kinds of society..of policies, are best for most citizens – and..this battle has seen an attempt to persuade everyone..what’s good for the 1%, what the top cares about and wants, is good for everyone: lower tax rates at the top, reduce the deficit, downsize government.”

Stiglitz: “A central theme..is..much of the inequality in our society arises because private rewards differ from social returns, and..the high level of inequality that now characterizes the United States, and the widespread acceptance of that level of inequality..makes it difficult in the United States to adopt good policies. Policy failures include those in macroeconomic stabilization, industrial deregulation, and underinvestment in infrastructure, public education, social protection, and research.”

Stiglitz: “We are paying a high price for our inequality – an economic system that is less stable and less efficient, with less growth, and a democracy that has been put in peril. But even more is at stake: as our economic system is seen to fail for most citizens, and as our political system seems to be captured by money interests, confidence in our democracy and in our market economy will erode along with our global influence.”

Stiglitz: A standard U.S. mantra: taxes stifle growth. “..far from it. Over the period 2000 to 2010, high-taxing Sweden..grew faster than the United States..taxes financed public expenditures – investments in Education, technology, and infrastructure – and the public expenditures were what..sustained the high growth.”

Stiglitz: Good financial regulation helped the United States – and the world – avoid a major crisis for four decades after the Great Depression. Deregulation in the 1980s led to scores of financial crises in the succeeding decades…2008-09 was only the worst..those governmental failures were no accident: the financial sector used its political muscle to make sure..market failures were not corrected..”

Stiglitz: The top 1% is very good at moving money from the bottom of the income pyramid to the top. “The financial sector has developed expertise in a wide variety of forms of rent seeking..I mention the financial sector because it has contributed so powerfully to our society’s current level of inequality…Those at the top have managed to design a tax system in which they pay less than their fair share – they pay a lower fraction of their income than do those who are much poorer.”

Stiglitz: “Three factors contributed to..increased monopolization of markets..there was a battle over ideas about the role..government should take in ensuring competition…A massive program to “educate” people, and especially judges, regarding these new [Chicago School] doctrines of law and economics, partly sponsored by right-wing foundations like the Olin Foundation, was successful..; A second factor..is related to changes in our economy..creation of money power was easier in some..new growth industries..; ..the third factor:..business found new ways of resisting entry, reducing competitive pressures.”

Stiglitz: Getting to set the rules and pick referees is important. “..regulatory agencies are responsible for oversight of a sector…The problem is..[economic] leaders in these sectors use their political influence to get people appointed to the regulatory agencies who are sympathetic to their prospectives. Economists refer to this as “regulatory capture.”…[Also]..mindset of regulators is captured..”cognitive capture..”

Stiglitz: “Sometimes government munificence..takes the form of rewriting the rules to boost profits. An easy way to do this is..Tariffs..[Then there are..distortionary subsidies [which] stem from a single source: politics…the vast preponderance of government money subsidizing agriculture [goes] ..from the rest of us to the rich and corporate farms..to describe each and every imstance of government approved rent seeking would require [a] book.”

Stiglitz: “..other advanced industrial countries with similar technology and per capita income differ greatly from the United States in inequality of pretax income, in equality of after tax income, and transfer income, in equality of wealth, and in economic mobility…also differ greatly..in..trends in these four variables over time.
“Markets..are shaped by political processes..the way we have been shaping America’s market economy works to the advantage of those at the top and to the disadvantage of the rest.”

Stiglitz: “When we wonder how it is..financiers get so much wealth, part of the answer is simple: they’ve helped write a set of rules that allows them to do well, even in..crises..they help create.”

Stiglitz: “The way globalization has been managed..has itself led to still lower wages because workers’ bargaining power has been eviscerated…imagine..what the world would be like if there was free mobility of labor, but no mobility of capital. Countries would compete to attract workers..promise good schools and a good environment..low taxes on workers..that’s not the world we live in..because the 1% doesn’t want it that way.”

Stiglitz: “President Reagan’s breaking of the air controller’s srike in 1981 represented a critical juncture in the breaking of strength of unions.”

Stiglitz: “The most egregious aspect of recent tax policy was the lowering of tax rates on capital gains..first under Clinton and again under Bush…we have given the very rich, who receive a large fraction of their income in capital gains, close to a free ride. It doesn’t make sense..investors, let alone speculators, should be taxed at a lower rate than someone who works hard for his living, yet that’s what our tax system does…The net effect is..the superrich actually pay on average a lower tax rate than those less well off..”

Stiglitz: “The rich and superrich often use corporations to protect themselves and shelter their income, and they have worked hard to ensure..the corporate income tax rate is low and the tax code..riddled with loopholes. Some corporations make such extensive use of these provisions..they don’t pay any taxes…and some, like GE, actually get money back from the government..multinationals like GE often shift income around…A..GAO study found..55% of U.S. companies paid no federal income taxes during at least one year in a 7-year period it studied.”

Stiglitz: A 2004 study showed the Bush tax cuts as: the middle 20% got 8.9%; the top 1% got 24.2%. And – investment, other than real estate, “actually fell, contrary to what some on the right had predicted..the cut in the estate tax may have discouraged spending; the rich could now safely stow away more money for their children and grandchildren..had less incentive to give away money to charities that would have spent the money on good causes.”

Stiglitz: “..tax cuts for the rich have increased the deficit and..national debt substantially has another effect: it has created pressure to reduce government support for investments in education, technology, and infrastructure. The Right has underestimated the importance of these public investments..” including all the 1800-1970 physical evidence that it powered American superpower status.

Stiglitz: “Citizens United..”represented a milestone in the disempowerment of ordinary Americans. It was hard to justify the Court’s decision on philosophical terms..It is generally recognized..providing money [support] conditional on a candidate’s providing a favor [supporting a bill] is corruption..there is little difference between that and what actually occurs..no FORMAL quid pro quo; but the effect is the same…most importantly, the perception by ordinary citizens is the same, so it weakens faith in our democracy little less than blatant corruption does.”
“The Court’s action was..just another reflection of the success of the moneyed interests in creating a system of ‘one dollar one vote’; they had succeeded in electing politicians who in turn appointed judges who would enshrine a corporation’s right to unbridled spending in the political area.”

Stiglitz: “..equally important..was the Court’s 2011 striking down [in Arizona Free Enterprise Cub..]..Arizona’s attempt to redress the imbalance of political power created by the imbalance of economic power by providing additional funds to candidates who were less successful in raising campaign money. Trusting the Court is important, because..it is vital..courts be viewed as fair arbiters..if the Court is viewed as not fair..even before arguments have been presented – then the Court’s main source of strength, its credibility and the influence it has in public opinion, will quickly disappear.” [note: post “Shelby.” more gun “rights” rulings, Dobbs, etc. – this came true. We are now awaiting the “supreme court’s” decision on whether ANY president has unfettered immunity. If this “court” buys that outrageous garbage, then IT IS OVER. The anti-George Washington can become dictator who can do ANYTHING]

[note: read this Stiglitz book – and others. He provides YOU with enough facts and analysis to absolutely prove why “The Far Right IS a Threat to Democracy’, most especially the rich and their corporations, “foundations,” etc. The 2024 America YOU now live in is not an accident – over 50 years of planning and conspiracy [REAL CONSPIRACY by the rich] are now shown to be highly successful. Look up the data yourself; UNSPUN. Census Bureau, IRS, GAO, CBO facts; lokk up pre-1980 and post-1980 income and wealth stats, WHO pays and doesn’t pay pre-1980 and post-1980 taxes; look up how the TAX RATES have been lowered on the rich and their corporations……]

We, the People, call upon Jim Hightower and Diane Ravitch to discuss how “Even red-state Republicans don’t want for-profit chains and religious zealots grabbing for tax dollars to indoctrinate school children.”

[note Hightowers’s words are from his Progressive Populist December 15, 2023 article]

Hightower: “If you’re trying to enact an extremist right-wing policy, but the public keeps rejecting it, what would you do?” You could try blatant deception, giving the same old policy..a euphemistic name and a multimillion dollar political shove. That’s the dark path..taken by the clique of plutocrats and theocrats..determined to privatize America’s public schools.”

Hightower: ‘..Texas Gov. Greg Abbott..[has].. been pushing to make taxpayers fund private schools. But his own right-wing legislature has consistently rejected his power play.”
“So this year, Abbott & Company rebranded their scheme as “school choice” and “parental empowerment.”…While some families might want exclusive private schools, their claim they have no choice is a fraud. As one GOP legislator put it, his rural county as “private schools, a parochial school, a charter school, and a large home school community. That is choice,” he rightly notes.

Hightower: “Who are the privatizers? National billionaires like the Koch brothers – and in Texas..Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks..who double as proselytizers of a toxic theology of Christian nationalism. They are the Money Gods of school privatization..the governor, more than half of Texas House members, and every Republican state senator is financially hooked on their oil money.”

{note: in the same issue, Hightower also had a section describing “How Humanities Humanize Our Society. So ‘Kill ‘Em,’ Say Right Wingers.” The right-wing in North Carolina, Alaska, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Ohio, Mississippi “and elsewhere” is pushing to cancel humanities classes [history, languages, music, civics, literature, economics, theology “and other courses..that explore ideas, foster free thinking and expand enlightenment”]
A Mississippi Republican explained state spending on college degree programs will require they match the needs of the economy. Hightower’s incredulous response: “What? Is America nothing but its economy? Is the value of students measured only by the size of their future paychecks? Is public spending only worthy if it serves corporate interests?”]

we, the People call Diane Ravitch to testify on “The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools.”

[note, Ravitch’s words are from her 2013 book, “Reign of Error’}

Ravitch: “Public education is not broken…Public education is in a crisis only so far as society is…The solutions proposed by..self-proclaimed reformers..have failed by their own most highly valued measure..test scores.”

Ravitch: “With the distance of nearly a dozen years, we can see the damage done by NCLB to the nation’s educational system. Race to the Top actually doubled down on the wrongheaded assumptions of NCLB…NCLB centralized control of public education in Washington to an extent that was unimaginable when the U.S. Department of Education was established in 1979..”

“Today..thanks to the philosophical and political alignment of No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top, federalism has been all but abandoned.”

Ravitch: “The Common Core State Standards are an example of the Department of Education’s muscular use of federal funds to push a policy on the states that may or may not be wise.>’…….
In short order, almost every state agreed to adopt them, even with clearly superior standards like Massachusetts and Indiana, despite the fact ..these new standards had never been field-tested anywhere.”

Ravitch: NClB created the unrealistic expectation..all students should be proficient, as judged by state tests, and Race to the Top built on that assumption – while encouraging a shift to “value-added” measures to rate schools and teachers…an equally unrealistic measure: students must improve their test scores every year. If they don’t, then someone must be “held accountable.” Someone must be blamed and punished…Some students will not be proficient on the standardized tests no matter how hard they try, no matter how talented their teachers…There is no way..schools and their staffs can control for all the external factors that contribute to test results.”

Ravitch: “NCLB created- and Race to the Top sustained – the unwarranted belief..standardized tests are an accurate, scientific gauge of educational achievement. They are not..”

Ravitch: “Test scores provide a way to rank children, but the labeling in and of itself serves no valid educational purpose. The tests do not measure the many dimensions of intelligence, judgment, creativity, and character that may be even more consequential for the student’s future than his or her test score.”

Ravitch: “NCLB validated the patently false narrative..American education was failing. Year after year, the number of “failing schools” increased in every state as more and more schools failed to meet the unreachable goal of 100% proficiency..NCLB demanded.”

Ravitch: ‘..federal programs have fueled and accelerated the privatization movement. The constant barrage of bad news, based on unrealistic goals, was used to justify takeovers, profiteering, mass layoffs, and a death sentence for too many schools, in an effort to convince the public..this was the only way to address low achievement.”

Ravitch: “The media, always suckers for “miracle” claims, retailed stories of charter schools or so-called turnaround schools where everyone succeeded, without bothering to examine even the most obvious evidence suggesting exclusionary policies, expulsions, or attrition rates.”

Ravitch: “The charter movement paved the way for the resurgence of the voucher movement, as its advocates insisted “choice” was far more important than investing in public education. This was precisely what the far-right wing of the Republican Party had been saying for decades, without winning public support. When the evidence for the superiority of charter schools or voucher schools was scant, shaky, or even nonexistent, the champions of the free market insisted that choice itself was an important value.”

Ravitch: “The free-market reform movement had more than federal mandates on its side. It had big money. The billions dangled before cash-hungry states by Obama’s Race to the Top made states compete to accept market-based, test-driven policies. The nation’s largest foundations..used their billions as well to reinforce the free-market agenda…They funded think tanks..to put out reports and host conferences, spinning the benefits of such programs, despite..lack of any solid research evidence…privateers produced slick movies..found willing supporters in..mass media..”

Ravitch: “The corporate reform movement has capitalized on the American public’s infatuation with consumerism…why not shop for their children’s schools?”

Ravitch: “The advance of privatization depends on high-stakes testing..[which].. generates the data to grade not only students and teachers but schools. Given unrealistic goals, a school can easily fail…but the odds of success are small, especially after the most ambitious parents and students flee the school. the federal regulations are like quicksand..”

Ravitch: “Public education is an essential part of the democratic fabric of American society .”..
“The goal of our public educational system, evolved over many decades, is equality of opportunity…Choice does not produce equality; choice exacerbates inequality, as a free market produces winners and losers.”

Ravitch: “Conservatives should be at the forefront of the effort to oppose privatization because the public school is a source of community, stability, and local values. Conservatives do not tear down established institutions and hand them over to..vagaries of the free market or..whims of financial and political elites. Conservatives do not destroy communities. What we are witnessing today is the Walmartization of American education, an effort to uproot neighborhood schools and Main Street business and outsource..management to chain schools and chain stores run by anonymous corporations.”

Ravitch: “Public education has enlarged our democracy since the mid-nineteenth century…assimilated millions of immigrant children..by teaching them how to speak English and how to participate in American democracy.”

{note; Ravitch was preceded by Deborah Meier” book, “Will Standards Save Publication?? The answer was no.}

[note: consider the depth of the campaign to eliminate public education, with these quotes:

Robert Simonds, president of “Citizens for Excellence in Education” and National Association of Christian Educators”: “Our job is to evangelize..schools are the battleground. The goal of 500,000 born-again Christians working inside the ‘system is to bring public education back under..control of the Christian community.” [1991]

Evangelist Franklin Graham: “I want to see at least one child in every public school in America who is trained as a witness for Jesus Christ. Let’s don’t surrender public schools. Let’s take them back..”

The Far Right has declared war on the rest of America. Their words and intent have been, are being spoken publicly. there is no mystery on what they intend: a theological plutocracy – run by the “right’ people, the “real” Americans like them. This site has, continues to make that information available to YOU. They intent to undo much of what made America a true “democracy” during the 20th century.
YOU may end up one of the “winners” if the Far Right succeeds – but YOU haver to live in a country full of distrust, hatred, poverty, exclusion. That is NOT what the American Revolution was about, NOT what Lincoln meant by a government of – by – and for the people, not what King meant in his “I have a Dream” speech, NOT what the trajectory of American history from 1789 to 1980 had tried to achieve.
If the Far Right succeeds, America will cease to be an exceptional nation, will cease to have any real “democratic” content for the lower 95% of its population. Do. YOU. care??? ooo

Consider the following:

General Motors CEO, “Engine” Charlie Wilson [1948]: “The working people did not make that inflation. They only want to catch up with it in order to pay their grocery bills.. We should say the ‘price-wage spiral.” For it is not primarily wages that push up prices, it is primarily prices that pull up wages.” [Wartzman: “The End of Loyalty’]

Robert Wood, Sears CEO: “The four parties to any business, in order of importance”: customers, employees, community, stockholders. [Wartzman]

Lawrence Lebowitz, Cohen & Grisby Vice President: “our goal is..not to find a qualified and interested U.S. worker.”
Roberts: “How the Economy Was Lost”]

Lord Nicholas Stern, former World Bank chief economist: Climate change was “the greatest and most wide-ranging market failure ever.” [Oreskes & Conway: “The Big Myth’}

Judge Richard Posner, in “A failure of Capitalism: The Crisis of ’08 and the descent into Depression” [2009]: the 2008 Crash should have hit “economic libertarians in their solar plexus,” because it was the result of underregulation, a consequence of the “innate limitations of the free market.” [Oreskes & Conway]

John Bogle: estimated top executives earned $1 trillion when they sold shares during the late 1990s bull market. Fees and commissions earned another $1.275 trillion. “Who lost all the money? The losers of course were those who bought the stocks and who paid the fees..the great American public.” [Madrick: “Age of Greed’]

“..Reagan’s budget director David Stockman confessed..supply-side economics “was always a Trojan horse to bring down the top {tax] rate.” [December, 1981] [Ehrenberg: “$ervants of Wealth”]

The heart of Adam Smith’s Book Iv argument: mercantilism, by intimidating the legislature into favoring the carrying trade, has distorted the economy of Britain and undermined the nation’s progress. {Hanley, ed.: “Adam Smith’}

“..Smith never said there was a “magical” or “miraculous”. ‘invisible hand’ in market exchanges benignly guiding them to a ‘best of all possible worlds'”. {Hanley]

Joe Stiglitz: “American inequality didn’t just happen. It was created…Much of the inequality that exists today is a result of government policy, both what the government does and what it does not do.” “The Price of Inequality”]

Patricia Sexton: ‘..in almost all other democracies…and many third world nations – parties of the democratic left have flourished and often exercised dominant power..Above all, these parties insist..a government belongs to its citizens, not o an oligarchy of wealth and power.” [“The War on Labor and the Left”]

1969 tobacco industry executive’s memo: “Doubt is our product, since it is the best means of competing with the ‘body of fact’ that exists in the minds of the general public.” [“Merchants of Doubt”]

We, the People, call Mark Green to testify on “Selling Out. How Big Corporate Money Buys Elections, Rams Through Legislation, and Betrays Our Democracy”

Green: The cost of the money chase: the money chase discourages voting and civic participation; discourages competitive elections; creates ‘part-time legislators & full-time fund-raisers; deters talent from seeking office; favors millionaires; corrupts legislation. The rough cost to Americans of the private system of financing elections was $50 billion – by contrast, the cost of public financing is $500 million to $1 billion.

Green: “In a study conducted by Ellen Miller of the Center for Responsive Politics, 20% of..members of Congress admitted..campaign contributions affected their voting; only half claimed contributions had no effect, and 30% said they weren’t sure.”

Green: “The pay-to-play mentality has so seeped into our system..there now exist two classes of citizens..those for whom tax breaks, bailouts, and subsidies are granted; for whom running for and winning office is plausible; and with whom elected officials take time to meet. And then..the rest of us – the non-donors for whom taxes go up, consumer prices rise, and influence evaporates.”

Green: “When candidates are forced to spend so much time listening to the problems of the wealthy, “wrote Mary H. Cooper in ‘The CQ Researcher,’ ‘they don’t hear about how hard it is to get decent health coverage or child care. Instead they get an earful about taxes or government regulations. That the wealthy keep the president on a leash is ..[made].. obvious by what gets done in Washington – and what doesn’t.”

Green: “Anyone who has been around Congress or a state or a city council knows that over time the pay off by public officials for..PAC contributions they receive is as real and sure and certain as the sunrise..The contributions constitute gilded corruption that has no sight, no. taste, no smell, no feel, no sound, and, of course – no smoking gun..one reason..it is so insidious. The other reason is..everybody does it, or almost everybody.” [Senator William Proxmire]

Green: “Money is speech. This is Senator McConnell’s ace in the hole, a noble constitutional justification for a sleazy system. Except that even the Buckley v. Valeo he so often cites never made this pure a declaration…if money were speech, there could be no laws against saying, “I”ll give you $10,000 if you kill this bill in committee”…”Money is not speech,” wrote former Senator Bill Bradley. “A rich man’s wallet does not merit5 the same protection as a poor man’s soap box.”…Money can’t be identical to speech or else Bill Gates has greater First Amendment rights than you or me.”

Green: Justice David Souter, for the “Shrink” majority: “Leave the perception of impropriety unanswered and the cynical assumption..large donors call the tune could jeopardize the willingness of voters to take part in democratic government. Democracy works ‘only if the people have faith in those who govern, and that faith is bound to be shattered when high officials and their appointees engage in activities which arouse suspicions of malfeasance and corruption’…There is little reason to doubt..sometimes large contributions will work actual corruption of our political system, and no reason to question the existence of a corresponding suspicion among voters.”

Green: “How do you know when a democracy is in decline?……when the 0.1% of Americans who contribute $1000 or more to political candidates have far more influence than the other 99.9%; when, in an election year, it’s nearly likely for an incumbent congressperson to die than to lose; when senators from the ten largest states have to raise an average of over $34,000 a week, every week, for six years to stay in office; when the cost of winning a House or Senate seat has risen tenfold in 24 years; when it’s far easier for a working-class person to win a seat in the Russian congress than in the American one; when legislatively interested PAC money goes 7 to 1 for incumbents over challengers – and 98% of House incumbents win; when most other democracies get a 70 to 80% turnout of eligible voters, while in the U.S. it’s half in presidential elections, a third in congressional elections, and often only a fifth in primaries; when one senator and one mayor each spend more getting elected than ALL the legislative candidates in Great Britain combined.”

Green: “When Representative Jim Leach [R-IA] once suggested to an urban Democrat with no dairy constituency that he should oppose a dairy price support, the Democrat said, “Their PAC gave me money. I have to support them.”
“When former Representative Claudine Schneider [R-CT] asked a colleague to oppose more funding for a nuclear reactor, he declined, explaining, “Yes, but Westinghouse is a big contributor of mine.”
“Former Representative Al Swift [D-WA] recalled how “one PAC director told me that he heard colleagues saying that they wanted to deliver a check just before the vote but also..members were calling EXPEDITING checks before a vote.”
“Former Representative Dan Glickman [D-KS] asked a colleague to oppose a bill to prohibit the Federal Trade Commission from regulating auto dealers. “I’m committed,’ answered the colleague. “I got a $10,000 check from the National Automobile Dealers’ Association. I can’t change my vote now.”
“Former Representative Leon Panetta [D-CA] described how a $1500 contributor asked him to support a trade protectionist bill; when Panetta asked about the substance, he was told, “I don’t have to tell you anything substantively – we gave you money and we expect you to.”…
“Senator Paul Wellstone observed..”Colleagues are not so crass as to actually say money made them do it. What they do say is ‘My people back home just won’t let me do it’ – and what’s insidious is that it’s understood he favors the measure but moneyed interests won’t let him.”
“One Northeast Democrat representative, who asked to remain anonymous, said with some indignation: “it shows exactly how corrupt Congress is when every single Republican and 46% of Democrats vote to help credit-card companies squeeze money out of low- and middle-income families in bankruptcy because of financial distress. Member after member said the same thing to me: they had previously voted against these companies and the banks on X, Y, or Z issue and they had to throw them one vote. “I can’t vote against them ALL the time,’ they’d say, implicitly referring to campaign donations.”

Green: “..when the Supreme Court in the 1976 ‘Buckley v. Valeo’ struck down the Federal Election Campaign Act’s spending ceilings, the alms race took off. then – and now – the sky’s the limit.”…
“If Buckley had come to a different conclusion, there would be no $2 million House candidates today, no $l5 million Senate candidates, no $74 million mayoral candidates.”

Green: “[Buckley is] one of the most weakly reasoned, poorly written, initially contradictory court opinions I’ve ever read.” [Senator, former federal district court judge. George Mitchell, 1999]

Green; “If money is equivalent to speech, why are there antibribery laws making it a crime to say the sentence “I’ll give you $5000 if you vote for this bill”?”

Green: “Representative Jim Leach [R-IA]: “members indignantly say, “money doesn’t affect my vote, but that defies human nature. If you take money, there’s absolutely an implication..you’ll listen to them..I don’t know a member who doesn’t believe that.”

Green: “..as Chief Justice Burger feared, by restricting the supply of election money while doing nothing to combat the spiraling demand for money, Buckley had the perverse consequence of creating a black market for funds; candidates became ever more dependent on the very special-interest groups whose influence the law was intended to curb.”

Green: “One candidate explained “money tries to buy access. Legislatively interested money is more invested than given, in an unspoken contract both sides understand..in the favor bank of life, nearly everyone is nicer to people who are generous to them When someone hands me a $25,000 contribution..’They’ve got my attention, and in the future I feel it’s rude not to take their call immediately..next time they call.”

Green: “I think most people assume – I do certainly – that someone making an extraordinarily large contribution is going to get some kind of an extraordinary return on it. I think that is a pervasive assumption. And..there is certainly an appearance of it, call it attenuated corruption..that large contributors is simply going to get better service, whatever that service may be, from a politician than the average contributor, let alone no contributor.” [Supreme Court Justice Davie Souter]

Green: “Perhaps the most notorious example of the tobacco lobby’s strength was the $50 billion ‘mystery amendment’ of 1997. In..what Senator Susan Collins..later called ‘backroom politics at its worst,’ a one-sentence, 46-word provision granting $50 billion in tax breaks for cigarette makers was snuck through a House bill in the dead of the night, and rushed to a vote the next day with members of Congress unaware of its existence. Worse yet, the amendment..granted the industry to use tax revenues as credit against the $368 billion smoking-related illness settlement..”

Green: “..at one time, [Senator Rudy] Boschwitz actually had his staff give donors different-colored stamps for them to put on mail they sent to his office to indicate their donation levels in order to facilitate preferential treatment.”

Green: Bruce Ratner: “There was an anxiety that, if we didn’t give, we might not be able to get a meeting, that it might hurt our development efforts, hurt our access. There was a sense..if you contributed, you were a friend..politicians divide the world into those who are for them, and those who are not. More than any other business, in politics power is wielded by those people who are friends, and those who are not are not helped and can even be hurt.”

Green: “Unless we fundamentally change this system, ultimately campaign finance will consume our democracy.”

{representative Lloyd Doggett, D-TX, 1996]


[note: the above is from Mark Green’s 2002 book, “Selling Out. How Big Corporate Money Buys Elections, Rams Through Legislation, and Betrays Our Democracy”. Read the book!!! And remember: this is before the massive corruption unleashed by the “supreme court’s” 2010 “Citizens United”. dictate – likely to live in infamy.
These and many more insiders are telling YOU one simple thing: if America does not end the gusher of corrupt, dark money to state and federal legislators and governors/presidents – American “democracy” is. OVER.

The ONLY debate currently is this: is America still a “democracy,” or is it ALREADY a plutocracy??????????
Look at WHO. have been the 205-2024 winners in the Roberts “supreme court” – corporations, the rich, the religious right. Look at. WHO. gets their bills passed in Congress – the rich and corporations. Not opinion – studies have been made since 1980 – this is what the numbers – the decisions almost all show – a near 100% success rate in some bodies, 70-90% in others. Example: it took them 60 years, but the big banks got Glass-Steagall trashed – which gave America not only corruption, but the 2008- Wall Street meltdown and subsequent recession. And, of course, the rich and privileged got baileed out, even bonuses!!! – but ordinary Americans lost their jobs and homes.]0

We, the People, call Dvid Gelles to testify on “How Jack Welch Gutted the Heartland and Crushed the Soul of Corporate America and How to Undo His Legacy”

Gelles: “..there is one CEO above all others..revered as a cultural and economic hero in his own time..who radically transformed the world around him and continues to hold sway even after his demise, who seized on changes in the zeitgeist and used them to rewrite..rules of our economy: Jack Welch.”

Gelles: “There is capitalism in America before Jack Welch, and after him…Look at..trend lines for any number of key economic indicators – wages, merger and acquisitions, manufacturing jobs, union representation, executive compensation, corporate tax rates – and its clear..right around 1981, the year Welch took over, things started to go off the rails.”

Gelles; “American manufacturing jobs peaked at nearly 20 million..nearly a quarter of full-time employment. [Then}.. he began his merciless campaign of cost-cutting and outsourcing.. Today [2022], there are roughly half as many manufacturing jobs in the United States as there were in 1980.”

Gelles: “Mergers and acquisitions Were relative rarities..acts of unusual corporate ambition or desperation. In 1980, the value of all..corporate deals in the United States amounted to a few tens of billions..Welch changed..that…that figure doubled and doubled again during the early years of Welch’s reign. By the end of his tenure, the value of mergers and acquisitions topped $1.5 trillion annually..”

Gelles: “..Welch’s lawyers did their best to pay the Internal Revenue Service the absolute minimum necessary..the share of taxes U.S. corporations paid..government steadily fell. When Welch became CEO, the effective tax rate on capital income was 46%. Twenty years later..35%..Today it is just 21%.”

Gelles: “Wealth grew more concentrated during his reign. Before Welch, Corporate profits were largely reinvested in the company or paid..to workers rather than sent back to stock owners…By the time o Welch’s retirement, a much greater share of corporate profits was going to investors and management..”

Gelles: “..Welch’s outsize pay packages helped usher in an era of runaway executive compensation that has steadily taken wealth out of the hands of workers..In 1980..average pay for a CEO of one on..top American companies was $1.85 million. In 2000, it was $21.5 million…CEO compensation has grown..940% since 1978…the average worker’s wage has increased..12%..”

Gelles: Welch’s star remained largely undimmed after he left GE..his opinion continued to hold great sway..he disparaged organized labor..he extolled mass layoffs..it amounted to a 20-year campaign to make his warped vision of capitalism the norm.. ahis extreme practices became commonplace. The myth..Welch’s way of doing business lived on..his influence reshaped the economy, eroding this country’s middle class, sowing distrust in once revered institutions, chipping away at the tax base, and exacerbating inequality.
“The empty factories, hollowed-out cities..unemployed workers – all lorded over by a wealthy ruling class – have contributed much to the broad sense of disenfranchisement afflicting so much of the country..”

Gelles: For..fifty years before Welch took over, corporations, workers..government enjoyed a relatively harmonious. equilibrium. Most companies paid decent wages, employees put in their time, just about everyone paid their taxes, regulations were accepted as necessary safeguards..government invested in things like education and infrastructure. It wasn’t perfect..but..worked well for much of the 20th century, giving rise to a diverse, thriving economy and a prosperous middle class.”

Gelles: “Then in the 1970s, the established order came under attack. A cadre of economists including Milton Friedman reimagined the purpose of the corporation and its role in society, laying..philosophical groundwork for an upending of the economic order. In their view, companies ought to maximize profits for shareholders at any cost, markets should be free, governments should stay out of the way, and the rest of society ought to take care of itself..anathema to the postwar balance..”

Gelles: “Welch decided to take GE – the epitome of..benevolent postwar employer – in a sharp new direction. He embraced..strategies promulgated by..economic revolutionaries on the right, devised his own mercenary twists, and refashioned GE from the inside out>
“Welch employed three main tools in his crusade: downsizing, dealmaking, and financialization…he instituted a series of mass layoffs that destabilized the American working class…He found the notion..a company should be loyal to employees..laughable…He fired workers by the thousands, convinced…a leaner work force meant lower labor costs..juicer profits..a higher stock price…Welch developed a new policy..Each year, managers rated..employees. Those who were in the bottom. 10% were let go.”

Gelles: “Welch championed offfshoring..reveled in outsourcing…Welch’s affinity for downsizing, which..employees called the “campaign against loyalty,” fundamentally altered GE…It became the..place..even a long-tenured employee might find themselves suddenly out of a job just before retirement, a company where what mattered most was not..quality of its people, but,,quantity of its profits.”

Gelles; “The second main weapon Welch employed..was dealmaking. Through compulsive mergers and acquisitions, he transformed GE from a proud domestic manufacturer to a cash-spewing collection of unrelated businesses, unleashing an M&A boom..well beyond GE… GE made nearly 1,000 acquisitions during Welch’s tenure, spending..$130 billion…GE sold..408 businesses for about $10.6 billion. No company had ever done so many deals so quickly. The biggest took GE far from its industrial roots. Often..deals were disasters. Sometimes, Welch quickly sliced up..companies he bought, then sold them off for parts…dealmaking served several of Welch’s greater goals. Welch wanted every business GE operated to be number one or number two in its respective category. If it couldn’t achieve that, it would be jettisoned… By selling companies – even ones..central to GE’s identity – Welch was able to retain only what he beieved..the most profitable..even if they had little to do with GE’s legacy manufacturing operations.”

Gelles: “The third dark art..Welch mastered was financialization…By the time he retired, the company derived much of its profits from GE Capital..essentially a giant unregulated bank. Welch got the company into all manner of risky debt instruments, insurance products, and credit cards. The finance division became GE’s center of gravity, ultimately accounting for 40% of revenues and 60% of profits. With so much money coursing through the finance division, Welch used it to his advantage…extracting whatever he needed to meet or beat analysts estimates for nearly 80 quarters in a row, an unprecedented run. Earnings targets were achieved using dubious accounting methods…profits flowed, and Welch used them to reward shareholders..”

Gelles: “..these tactics..served the same aim..aiding his endless quest to enrich his investors. if that meant cutting hundreds of thousands of jobs..companies were acquired and then sold for parts..playing fats and loose with accounting rules, what was the harm?….simply reducing what motivated Welch to greed is insufficient. He was possessed with a world-beating ambition..to make his GE a company for the ages…Welch was the embodiment of the shareholder primacy dogma hatched by Milton Friedman, and for 20 years just about everything he did worked. GE did become the most valuable company on earth. GE shareholders were showered with riches. Welch was revered as the greatest CEO of all time.””

Gelles; “..he elevated the role of..chief executive from..people manager to something closer to a pop star…The business press adored him…Business schools treated Welch like an oracle, turning his strategies into case studies and curricula. Wall street analysts marveled at his seemingly magical ability to hit the numbers, quarter after quarter… Welch was the personification of American, alpha-male capitalism…His exploits were so over-the-top, his personal wealth so enormous, it was impossible for other executives not to emulate him. At the end of his illustrious career, Fortune magazine dubbed him “Manager of the Century.”

Gelles; “That kind of success..made Welch singularly influential in the corridors of economic power…He was the first celebrity CEO..golfed with presidents..his love life was tabloid fodder, and his gargantuan pay packages..glorified at a moment when conspicuous consumption..in vogue. His roaring success inspired countless imitators… Welch redefined how corporations measured success, setting the standard for a genertion..”

Gelles: “..his strategies ultimately destroyed what he loved..Not long after he retired, GE fell into a spiral of decline set in motion by Welch’s short-term decision-making. Within months of his departure, it became clear..GE was deeply troubled, and in a matter of years, the corporation was falling apart…Welch’s underinvestment in research and development caught up with the company as it failed to introduce new, innovative products..incessant dealmaking resulted in. a series of bad trades that burdened the company with money-losing divisions..the quest for ceaseless growth in the finance division led GE to become a major holder of sub-prime mortgages just in time for the financial crisis of 2008. At its nadir, GE needed a $139 billion rescue from the Obama administration and an eleventh-hour investment from Warren Buffett to stave off collapse..”

Gelles: “Although Welch’s legacy was tarnished by the collapse of GE, his worldview continues to shape much of corporate America..methods he devised..still in use..priorities he established still shape decision-making in boardrooms..some of his disciples are still in charge of major multinational corporations…Welchism..the conviction..companies must prioritize profits for shareholders above all else..executives are entitled to enormous wealth and minimal accountability..everyday employees deserve nothing more than their last paycheck. Welchism ascribes moral worth to material success…the Welchist worldview adopts a Darwinian attitude toward the labor market, a smug conviction..those who don’t make it are to blame for their own misfortune..the poorest among us ultimately deserve their fate. The closest historical analog to Welchism is probably imperialism.”

[note; the above is a very brief sampling of Gelle’s book, “The Man Who Broke Capitalism.” If YOU. want another look at. WHY. the America of 202r5 is. NOT. like the America prior to 1980 – then read this book, in addition to many others cited here; in addition to unspun statistics from Census, IRS, CBO, GAO. Dig into the Chicago School of economics, and the”economists’ like them who have excused the unmatched post-1980 greed among the top 1%. Pulitzer and Nobel Prize winners have told. YOU. why “The American Dream” was stolen. Jack Welch is one of the perps who did it. He has many accomplices who eagerly rigged an economy that worked for all Americans into one that victimizes most Americans. And it only took 40 years for them to overturn much of 1789 – 1980 American democratic thought, intent, policies. The top 1% lies to accomplish this are matched only by the massive corruption it took to rewrite the rules.]o

We, the People, call Jeff Madrick to testify on “The Triumph of Finance and the Decline of America, 1970 to the Present.

[note: the following is a brief summary of Madrick’s “Age of Greed [2011],; 404 pages, 40 pages of notes]

Madrick: “In an op-ed piece..in the Financial Times in mid-2010, Sheila Bair..Republican-appointed chairman of the FDC, wrote Wall street had channeled hundreds of billions..into foolish speculation in housing in the 2000s..”..that capital was misallocated..”
“The same complaint would have been appropriate in each decade of the age of greed. In the 1970s…In the 1980s…thrifts, released from restraints by the Garn-St. Germain bill, spent savers’ money..on one foolish fantasy after another..”
“In the 1990s, an era of deceit helped promote the speculative bubble in high-technology and telecom stocks..Good money was invested after bad in one absurdist dream after another, justified by Wall street analysts…Accounting fraud reached new heights across corporate America..”

Madrick: “The question was not wether Wall Street bankers contributed enough to the economy to warrant their compensations, but how much they cost the economy in the damage done.”

Madrick: “..in the 2000s, capital investment was notably weak, even as corporations made enormous profits and built up coffers of cash of $2 trillion. Many bought back..shares of their own company to drive up their stock prices. Academic finance theory supported such strategies. Stock prices would rise and investors..sell..and..supposedly invest in more attractive corners of the economy, contributing to prosperity. this claim was made time and again..”
“In fact, there are many flaws in this theoretical argument. Capital investment in new ideas has always been risky…Another flaw is the assumption..business executives make decisions to benefit their firms..when in fact, under the tutelage of Wall Street, they often make decisions to make themselves rich..”

Madrick: “The amount of federal money spent to bail out failing financial institutions after a crisis was not the only cost of overspeculation…The money should have been invested more intelligently and productively. The collapse of the thrifts weakened the economy and helped precipitate a credit crisis and the 1990 recession..”
“Similarly, the cost of the $700 billion TARP bailout was small…the Treasury should have made a much better deal…more important, it should have demanded..firms that got the money lend much of it out. Lending remained weak.
“But the largest cost..was the steepest recession since the 1930s. GDP fell sharply. 8 million jobs were lost…Federal tax revenues were and will continue to be reduced..the budget deficit..much higher…None of this counts the severl trillion dollars of debt or loan guarantees made by the Federal Reserve, whose future costs cannot yet be computed.”

Madrick; “Over the four decades of the age of greed, financial assets as a percentage of GDP more than doubled. Revenues of financial firms rose from3% of GDP to 6%, and profits of those financial firms soared from l3% of all profits to 30-40%.”

Madrick: “..recent economic research finds high levels of personal compensation paid to bankers and traders..not remotely deserved.”

Madrick; “The true cost of the financial excesses of Wall Street and what would have happened to the economy were mooted by the federal government’s rescue. But one mainstream analysis by Alan Blinder and Moody’s analytics chief economist, Mark Zandi, estimated the damage that would have been done. In all, federal guarantees and loans came to more than $12 trillion.”…
“..had nothing ben done by Washington..Blinder and Zandi estimated..recession would have continued through 2011, and GDP would have fallen by 12%..rather than the substantial 4% it did fall..greater than any other recession in the post-World War II period…The unemployment rate would have reached 16.5%…a full-fledged depression”……..

Madrick: “..average compensation never grew as slowly in American industrial history than it did over the course of the course of the age of greed…Over this period, productivity rose significantly faster than worker compensation. In the 2000s, typically household incomes actually fell. Productivity gains flowed to corporate profits.”

Madrick: “The 1990s through 2002 was the most corrupt “decade” since the 1920s – and one of the most corrupt in American business history. An infrastructure of corruption..spread in the 1990s across the American establishment into elite professions…Blatant corruption in several enormous companies served by the Wall street financial infrastructure momentarily stunned the nation..leading to criminal convictions..and moderate congressional reforms..”

[note: reread what Madrick related – the numbers, the trends, the corruption, the costs, expert analysis – this, and MUCH MORE!!!! – is the reason for his title: “The Age of Greed”. – perpetrated by, GUESS WHO????? – those same THREATS TO DEMOCRACY – the rich and the corporations!!!!! You can’t make this stuff up – and – it actually occurred, AND – IS CONTINUING TO OCCUR. Wall street. “OWNS CONGRESS” – repeatedly said by people IN Congress. Angry about loss of YOUR purchasing power??? Look no further than the rich and corporations – they do not, and refuse to, suffer, inflation. check their comments on. “margins”. – short for their PROFIT MARGINS. – they maintained them during recent inflation. – THAT. is why YOU. pay more at the grocery store and for everything else.
in the plutocracy America really is, the rich decide what YOU. will be paid, and how much YOU. will pay for their products. If YOU don’t understand this – you are ignorant of what has happened in post-1980 America.]