As much as Bush and Paulson will try and spin this as just another typical cycle when the economy turns south, they are still understating reality. They are attempting to spin this massive failure which Goldman forecasts as a $1.2 TRILLION loss as run of the mill and of cycle moment. The duo will tell us that they want to restructure the system a little, but by and large everything is fine. The lack of regulation did not just happen, it was planned and deployed this way courtesy of Wall Street and decades of lobbying Republicans in Congress. For them, it all worked out fine. They pocketed billions, probably trillions on the backs of both normal people. A few casualties, sure, but after all, Bear Chairman Cayne still pocketed a very cushy $61 million this week.
Another important issue that needs to be addressed is why should we believe Paulson and Bush when they talk about oversight? This administration has never shown interest in oversight or regulation unless there is a woman's nipple on TV. Obviously people have been calling for regulation of this wild west financial system for a while and they consistently ignored those calls. Even today, they want regulations to be mentioned, but not actually carried out because that might slow business down, so they say. Democrats have yet another opportunity to expose both the GOP and the administration on their weak response and failure to help out normal Americans. Will they seize the moment? We are in this situation because of specific GOP policy. Make them eat this dirt every day or expect the GOP to shed yet another of their failings and live another day.
Every time I read about the latest urgent, must-have tax break to a big corporate power that has to have the tax cut or else the end of the world is near, I always wonder who provides these give-aways that rarely include penalties of the big corporate fails to deliver on their own promise to add new jobs. In the business world a contract would almost always include a penalty if the other party failed to deliver on a deliverable but with tax breaks, you would be hard pressed to find anything like it. It's always easy money for business without having to produce.
In this specific case, these are the companies that Bush wants to coddle and protect from price negotiations with the government instead of the standard practice in the real world of being a power buyer and negotiating based on volume. Pelosi and the Democrats are spot on with demanding price negotiations and when you see stories like this, it's obvious Big Pharma can't be trusted as an honest broker and do the right thing with prices. Negotiate and negotiate hard for goodness sakes. It's American tax payer dollars at stake.
Drug makers were the biggest beneficiaries of the amnesty program, repatriating about $100 billion in foreign profits and paying only minimal taxes. But the companies did not create many jobs in return. Instead, since 2005 the American drug industry has laid off tens of thousands of workers in this country.
And now drug companies are once again using complex strategies, many of them demonstrably legal, to shelter billions of dollars in profits in international tax havens, according to their financial statements and independent tax experts.
If you or I knowingly funneled $1.7 million to one of the worst, and best known, terrorist organizations in the world, we'd be sent to Guantanamo permanently. But when it's the senior management of Chiquita Banana, the Bush administration gives them a fine.
A fine.
Some war on terror we're running. We'll throw grandma in Cuba just for being Muslim, but if you're a corporate executive who knew what you were doing, and knew it was wrong (their own lawyers told them not to do it), the Bush Justice Department gives you a slap on the wrist.
Great message to be sending our troops, and every country on earth. Terrorism is bad, unless you're a big corporate friend of Bush. Then, not so bad.
One of the groups Chiquita funded was the terrorist group FARC in Colombia. Let me give you a quick look at who FARC is.
FARC is responsible for most of the ransom kidnappings in Colombia; the group targets wealthy landowners, foreign tourists, and prominent international and domestic officials. FARC stepped up terrorist activities against infrastructure in cities before Colombia’s May 2002 presidential election. Recent FARC operations include:
* the November 2005 kidnapping of sixty people, who are currently being held hostage by FARC, until the government decided to release hundreds of their comrades serving prison sentences. Former presidential candidate, Ingrid Betancourt—who was kidnapped in 2002—is among the hostages; * the February 2002 hijacking of a domestic commercial flight and kidnapping of a Colombian senator on board; * the February 2002 kidnapping of a presidential candidate, Ingrid Betancourt, who was traveling in guerrilla territory; * the October 2001 kidnapping and assassination of a former Colombian minister of culture; and * the March 1999 murder of three American missionaries working in Colombia, which resulted in a U.S. indictment of FARC and six of its members in April 2002.
Is it really asking for too much to expect the Republicans to help out consumers instead of their corporate contributors? How low can the GOP sink by allowing vinyl lead-laden lunch boxes to be sold to America's children? The crime is bad enough, but when previously asked the the research behind their approval of the toxic lunch boxes, they played the "we need to protect manufacturers business" card and acted against the best interest of American children.
Once again, thanks to the Freedom of Information Act, the details are now emerging:
"They found levels that we consider very high," said Alexa Engelman, a researcher at the Oakland, California-based Center for Environmental Health, which has filed a series of legal complaints about lead in lunchboxes.
"They knew this all along and they didn't take action on it. It's upsetting to me. Why are we, as a country, protecting the companies? We should be protecting the kids. I don't think in this instance they did their job."
Said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-California: "I am concerned that the CPSC has failed to protect children from an unnecessary hazard they have known about for some time. We should protect our children by banning lead in all children's products."
Although these test results are only now being aired publicly, the CPSC did provide them to the Food and Drug Administration last summer. The FDA's reaction was completely different from the CPSC's. In July 2006, after receiving the test results, the FDA sent a letter to lunch box manufacturers warning them that their lead levels might be dangerously high and advising them that the FDA might take action against them because the lead would be considered a food additive if it rubbed off onto kids' lunches.
"The lunchboxes containing the lead compounds may be subject to enforcement action," said the letter.
In response to the FDA warning, Wal-Mart stopped selling soft lunchboxes with vinyl liners, and offered refunds to customers who wanted to return the ones they already had.
So here you have it: consumer protection by Wal-Mart and hollow threats by our own government. While I appreciate Wal-Mart's action, their own record is dubious and this is merely one outlet. What is the matter with the GOP political appointees who are so uninterested in consumers?
