What a great year for Wall Street: profits up, bonuses up and, best of all, criticism down, especially from Washington. Somehow Wall Street has much of America believing its lies and rationalizations. We're even beginning to forget that Wall Street is largely responsible for the economic mess we're in.
So before we're completely overtaken by financial Alzheimer's, let's revisit Wall Street's greatest fabrications for 2010. (For the full story, please see The Looting of America.)
1."Honest, we didn't do it!"Two years ago Wall Street's colossal greed crashed our economy. Our financial elites created and spewed highly leveraged toxic assets around the globe. These poisonous "innovations" pumped up the housing bubble and Wall Street grew insanely rich in the process. When it all burst, we learned that the big Wall Street institutions that had caused the crash were far too big to fail -- and too connected. High government officials came to their rescue with trillions in cash and guarantees -- underwritten, of course, by we taxpayers. Everyone knew this at the time. But if you asked just about anyone on "The Street" they denied all culpability and pointed the finger everywhere else: Fannie, Freddie, the Fed, the Community Reinvestment Act, tax deductions for home buying, bad regulations, not enough regulations, too many regulations, too much consumer debt, the rating agencies, the Chinese -- and on and on. Sadly, their blame-shifting strategy worked, bamboozling the media and people across the political spectrum. The GOP members of the Financial Crisis Commission are so drunk with this Kool-Aid that in their minority report, they refuse even to use the words "Wall Street" or "speculation" in assessing the causes of the crash. Hypocrites? Crooks? Morons? Take your pick.
2."The overall costs will be incredibly small in comparison to almost any experience we can look at in the United States or around the world." Ever since Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner screwed up his tax returns we knew he was numerically challenged. But his statement to Congress on December 16, 2010, on the cost of the bailout shows a willful inability to count. Yes, Wall Street has paid back most of our bailout funds. Whoopee! Our economy is in shambles, and millions of people are suffering. With his offensive "no big deal" analysis, Geithner glosses over all this human misery, and sidesteps the hidden costs of the bailout, including the financial insurance we taxpayers provided to every giant financial company in the country via the Fed. On the open market, that insurance -- which guarantees trillions of dollars in toxic assets -- would come at a very steep price. We coughed it up for free. But that's still chump change compared to the human costs of the worst employment crisis since the Great Depression -- the lost income, the depleted savings, the ravaged neighborhoods. Then there's the capsized state and local budgets, the public service reductions, the laid off teachers, firefighters and police officers -- all resulting from a plunge in public revenues caused by Wall Street's crash. Why aren't these costs on Geithner's balance sheet? A cynic might think Tim was priming us to accept the latest round of Wall Street bonuses. Hey -- they paid us back, so why should we care how much they earn?
3. "It's a war. It's like when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939." Steven Schwarzman is supposed to be brilliant. After all, he made billions as head of the Blackstone Group, a private equity company and hedge fund. But last August, as some members of Congress mulled about eliminating a very lucrative tax loophole, he suffered a mental meltdown and saw an impending Nazi invasion. But the awful attack never happened. Schwartzman and his fellow hedge fund honchos all held onto their unbelievable tax break: Hedge fund and private equity income is still only taxed at 15 percent rather than at the top income tax rate of 35 percent. (That's because, inexplicably, it's considered "capital gains," not income.) Taxing Schwartzman's income as income would cost him hundreds of millions of dollars -- and the prospect of this apparently triggered a shock spasm that catapulted his foot into his mouth. I'm sure my IQ isn't high enough to keep up with the genius logic behind Steve's analogy. But just who is Hitler and who is Poland in his scenario? Maybe in his grandiose conceit, his firm is as big as Poland? Or it would require a Blitzkrieg to wipe out his tax loophole? In reality, even if Schwarzman had to pay a 90 percent tax rate (as he would have under Eisenhower), it would hardly have been a hardship -- let alone World War 3. He'd still have more money than he could ever spend in his lifetime. Schwarzman should be proud though: He gets 2010's Dumbest Wall Street Quote of the Year Award. Bravo! (In 2009 the honor went to Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs, who claimed he was "doing God's work."
4. "The hard truth is that getting this deficit under control is going to require some broad sacrifice, and that sacrifice must be shared by employees of the federal government." But not by Wall Street. President Obama words of November 29th came only days before he "compromised" with the Republicans to continue the Bush tax cuts for the super-rich and to bestow an enormous estate tax gift to the 6,600 richest families in America. Mr. President, the "hard truth" is that you're slapping around public sector workers because you don't have the nerve to take on Wall Street. If you had the guts, you could raise real money by going to war with Steven Schwartzman and eliminating the hedge fund tax loophole. By the way, closing that loophole for just the top 25 hedge fund managers would raise twice the revenue than you'll get by freezing the wages of all two million federal workers! (See "The Wall Street Tax Debate that Never Was" )
5. "25 hedge fund managers are worth 658,000 teachers." Nearly everyone on Wall Street sincerely believes that they are "worth" the enormous sums they "earn." You see, their pay is determined by the market, and markets don't lie. They reflect the high value our skilled elites bring to the economy. So we shouldn't be shocked that the top 25 hedge fund managers together "earn" $25 billion a year, even at a moment when more than 29 million Americans can't find full-time work. The outrageous economic logic of Wall Street compensation has those 25 moguls taking home as much as 658,000 entry level teachers (they earn about $38,000 per year). How can that be justified? It can't. These obscene "earnings" are the product of 30 years of financial deregulation, as well as the tax cuts and tax loopholes that our government has just extended. The hedge fund honchos get most of their money by siphoning off wealth from the rest of us, not by creating new value. I dare Wall Street to prove otherwise.
6. "To bolster the economy we need .... an improvement in the relationship between business and government (the current antagonism, even if not the primary explanation for slow hiring and sluggish investment, does seem to be affecting hiring and other business behavior)." In this op-ed, Peter Orszag, Obama's former budget director, parrots the Wall Street line that employers aren't hiring because of "regulatory uncertainty." Mother of God, how much more certainty do they want? The Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats aren't about to let Obama seriously regulate Wall Street, even if he wanted to, which he doesn't. The truth is that employers aren't hiring because there's insufficient consumer demand for goods and services. But at least Peter Orszag is a man of his word. He personally plans to "improve the relationship between business and government" by tapping his government contacts at his new fat job at Citigroup, the nearly failed mega-bank that he helped to save at taxpayer expense. Orszag could have landed a coveted professorship at just about any university in the world. But apparently the 42-year-old wiz kid prefers Citigroup's multi-million dollar compensation package. Any bets on how long it takes for Larry Summers to cash in?
7. "Lengthened availability of jobless benefits has raised the unemployment rate by 1.5 percentage points." You see, the unemployed cause their own unemployment, at least if you believe this assessment from a March 17th research note from JP Morgan Chase. (Next, Wall Street will call for a return of the Poor Houses.) The theory is simple -- you give people money not to work and they won't look for jobs. Still, it takes chutzpah for JP Morgan Chase, the beneficiary of billions of dollars in taxpayer largess, to criticize the unemployed for not finding jobs that aren't there, precisely because JP Morgan Chase helped to destroy them! Dear JP Morgan research staff: Five to six workers are now competing for every available job. If that's too complicated for you quants to grasp, maybe you should try a game of musical chairs in the trading room.
8. "Private employers, led by our revitalized financial sector, will create the jobs we need -- that is, if the government would just stay out of the way." We now need 22 million new jobs to get us back to full employment (5 percent unemployment). In addition, each month the economy must generate another 105,000 jobs just to keep up with new entrants into the workforce. To get to full employment, the private sector would have to create about 630 firms the size of Apple (35,000 employees each). These numbers don't lie. Does anyone on Wall Street really believe that the private sector alone can pull off this miracle? But really, why should they care? They've got theirs, thank you very much. The painful truth that both Wall Street and Washington refuse to face is that if the big, bad government doesn't fund or create millions of new jobs, we'll face crippling unemployment for decades to come.
9. "Tim Geithner extolled 'the benefits of financial innovation' to the American economy." (Wall Street Journal, August 4, 2010) Sorry to beat up on Tim again, but it's sometimes hard to tell who he's working for. Whenever you hear the phrase "financial innovation" put your hand on your wallet. That's the phrase Wall Street uses to justify its casinos and its outlandish profits and bonuses. People who talk about "financial innovation" are either getting big bucks on Wall Street, want more bucks on Wall Street, or hope to get a job on Wall Street the nano-second their public service ends. My question for Tim is: If Apple creates iPhones, what does Wall Street create? Warren Buffett says it creates "financial weapons of mass destruction." Paul Volcker, Reagan's Fed Chair, said there is not a "shred of evidence" that "financial innovation" is beneficial. Volcker also believes that the economy "was quite good in the 1980s without credit-default swaps and without securitization and without CDOs." Volcker gets the Smartest Wall Street Quote of the Year Award: "The most important financial innovation I've seen in the last 25 years is the automatic teller machine." How could Tim get it so wrong?
10. "I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here." Okay, okay, Claude Raines said that in Casablanca, not on Wall Street. But Wall Street and its defenders say exactly the same thing about their opaque derivatives games. Louise Story's excellent piece in The New York Times shows how a handful of banks have cornered the market clearinghouses for derivatives - entities that are supposed to make derivatives less risky. The big banks are limiting competition, according to Story, because they "want to preserve their profit margins, and they are the ones who helped write the membership rules." Meanwhile, Wall Street is quietly pushing to exempt its most profitable derivatives from even these rigged exchanges. So don't be "shocked, shocked" when Wall Street crashes again and we're asked to foot the bill. And that's when, not if.
*****
Dear Readers, here's to a Happy New Year and a more just 2011. Many thanks for all your support.
FCC allows corporate censorship online with fake Net Neutrality | |
| By: Jason Rosenbaum Tuesday December 21, 2010 12:07 pm | |
[Ed. note: Please note the request for help at the bottom of this post. Thanks.]
Minutes ago, the FCC passed new rules — written by corporations — that will end Net Neutrality. For the first time in history, the U.S. government approved corporate censorship of the Internet, putting the future of online free speech at risk. Unbelievably, the person leading the charge was Obama appointee Julius Genachowski (known in some circles as Judas GenaComcast for his historic sellout and notorious industry-friendly attitude).
These rules also violate President Obama’s campaign promise to protect Net Neutrality and appoint an FCC Commissioner who would do the same, but some media are reporting the corporate spin that this is a “Net Neutrality compromise.” The White House is trying to convince us this isn’t a sellout as well with their wholly supportive statement.
This is not a compromise and it doesn’t fulfill Obama’s campaign promise — not even close. There’s no such thing as half a First Amendment and no such thing as prohibiting “some” corporate censorship. In reality, these rules are what Senator Al Franken said they are:
The FCC’s action today is simply inadequate to protect consumers or preserve the free and open Internet. I am particularly disappointed to learn that the order will not specifically ban paid prioritization, allowing big companies to pay for a fast lane on the Internet and abandoning the foundation of net neutrality. The rule also contains almost no protections for mobile broadband service, remaining silent on the blocking of content, applications, and devices. Wireless technology is the future of the Internet, and for many rural Minnesotans, it’s often the only choice for broadband.
Today was another historic sellout to big corporations by the Obama administration, not some kind of “win.” We need to set the record straight.
I’ve put together a page with three clear reasons why today’s rules are a sellout, allow corporate censorship, and end the Internet as we know it. I’ve also copied them below. Can you share this page with our friends so we can get the word out? . . .
If you’re on Twitter, please click to share this: NEWS: @FCC breaks Obama promise, allows corporate censorship – no Net Neutrality rules. 3 things to know: http://bit.ly/eVKyWH @WhiteHouse
If you’re on Facebook, click here to spread the word.
Here’s why today’s rules are nothing but a sop to big business:
1. Corporate censorship is allowed on your phone: The rules passed today by Obama FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski absurdly create different corporate censorship rules for wired and wireless Internet, allowing big corporations like Comcast to block websites they don’t like on your phone — a clear failure to fulfill Net Neutrality and put you, the consumer, in control of what you can and can’t do online.
2. Online tollbooths are allowed, destroying innovation: The rules passed today would allow big Internet Service Providers like Verizon and Comcast to charge for access to the “fast lane.” Big companies that could afford to pay these fees like Google or Amazon would get their websites delivered to consumers quickly, while independent newspapers, bloggers, innovators, and small businesses would see their sites languish in the slow lane, destroying a level playing field for competition online and clearly violating Net Neutrality.
3. The rules allow corporations to create “public” and “private” Internets, destroying the one Internet as we know it: For the first time, these rules would embrace a “public Internet” for regular people vs. a “private Internet” with all the new innovations for corporations who pay more — ending the Internet as we know it and creating tiers of free speech and innovation, accessible only if you have pockets deep enough to pay off the corporations.
The FCC could have reclassified Internet as a communications service — reversing a Bush-era mistake — regulated greedy corporations like Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T with enforceable rules, and protected free speech online. But they didn’t — instead, they allowed these corporations to write their own rules.
It’s imperative the FCC’s action today isn’t seen as a “win” for Net Neutrality — the Internet is still unprotected from corporate abuse and we still have to fight until we truly win. So help us spread the word.
If you’re on Twitter, please click to share this: NEWS: @FCC breaks Obama promise, allows corporate censorship – no Net Neutrality rules. 3 things to know: http://bit.ly/eVKyWH @WhiteHouse
If you’re on Facebook, click here to spread the word.
I’m proud to work for the Progressive Change Campaign Committee
Whose surprised? Obama has broken so many promises at this pt. it's almost becoming predictable. Up next yr. is gutting SSI and Medicare.
| 24 Signs That All Of America Is Becoming Just Like Detroit – A Rotting, Post-Industrial, Post-Apocalyptic Wasteland | |
| Published on 12-07-2010 | |
Source: The American Dream For years, people have been laughing at the horrific economic decline of Detroit. Well, guess what? The same thing that happened to Detroit is now happening to dozens of other communities across the United States. From coast to coast there are formerly great manufacturing cities that have turned into rotting, post-industrial war zones. In particular, in America’s “rust belt” you can drive through town after town after town that resemble little more than post-apocalyptic wastelands. In many U.S. cities, the “real” rate of unemployment is over 30 percent. There are some communities that will start depressing you almost the moment you drive into them. It is almost as if all of the hope has been sucked right out of those communities. Meanwhile, the economic downturn has been incredibly hard on the finances of state and local governments across the United States. Unlike the federal government, state and local governments cannot use the Federal Reserve to play games with their exploding debt burdens. Facing horrific budget deficits, many communities have begun adopting “austerity measures” in an attempt to slow the flow of red ink. All over the nation, deep budget cuts are slashing police departments, fire departments and other basic social services, but it seems like no matter what many of these communities try the debt just keeps growing. So when you combine economic hopelessness with drastic budget cuts, what you get are hordes of communities from coast to coast that are becoming just like Detroit. In the city of Detroit today, there are over 33,000 abandoned houses, 44 schools have been permanently closed down, the mayor wants to bulldoze one-fourth of the city and you can literally buy a house for one dollar in the worst areas. Many Americans thought that it was funny to make fun of Detroit, but little did they know that what happened there would soon start happening everywhere. The following are 24 signs that all of America is becoming a rotting, post-industrial, post-apocalyptic wasteland just like Detroit…. #1 The second most dangerous city in the United States – Camden, New Jersey – is about to lay off about half its police. #2 In the city of Camden, about the only “industries” that are truly thriving are drug-dealing and prostitution. It is estimated that there are literally dozens of open-air drug markets in Camden. #3 The city of Newark, New Jersey laid off 13 percent of its police force just last week. #4 Of 315 municipalities the New Jersey State Policemen’s union recently surveyed, more than halfindicated that they were planning to lay off police officers. #5 At least 1000 people now live in the 200 miles of flood tunnels that exist under the city of Las Vegas. #6 All over America, asphalt roads are being ground up and are being replaced with gravel because it is cheaper to maintain. The state of South Dakota has transformed over 100 miles of asphalt road into gravel over the past year, and 38 out of the 83 counties in the state of Michigan have transformed at least some of their asphalt roads into gravel roads. #7 The number of Americans on food stamps has hit yet another new all-time record. 42.9 million Americans are now enrolled and federal authorities fully expect that number to continue to skyrocket. #8 The city of San Jose, California recently laid off 49 firefighters. #9 Over the past year, approximately 100 of New York’s state parks and historic sites have had to cut services and reduce hours. #10 In 2009 alone, approximately 4 million more Americans joined the ranks of the poor. #11 The state of Arizona recently decided to stop paying for many types of organ transplants for people enrolled in its Medicaid program. #12 Many of the police in Arizona that patrol communities near the border with Mexico say that they are“outmanned” and “outgunned” and now live in fear of being taken out by drug cartel assassins. #13 Gang violence in America is getting totally out of control. According to authorities, there are now over 1 million members of criminal gangs operating inside the country, and those gangs are responsible for up to 80% of the violent crimes committed in the U.S. each year. #14 Oakland, California Police Chief Anthony Batts has announced that due to severe budget cuts there are a number of crimes that his department will simply not be able to respond to any longer. The crimes that the Oakland police will no longer be responding to include grand theft, burglary, car wrecks, identity theft and vandalism. #15 One out of every six Americans is now enrolled in at least one anti-poverty program run by the federal government. #16 The state of Illinois is so far behind on its bills that not even schools and essential social services are getting their money on time. #17 The sheriff’s department in Ashtabula County, Ohio has been slashed from 112 to 49 deputies, and there is now just one vehicle remaining to patrol all 720 square miles of the county. #18 As our local communities degenerate economically, it appears that they are falling apart morally as well. There are approximately 400,00 registered sex offenders in the United States as you read this. #19 In a desperate attempt to save money, the city of Colorado Springs turned off a third of its streetlightsand put its police helicopters up for auction. #20 According to one recent study, approximately 21 percent of all children in the United States are living below the poverty line in 2010. #21 According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, more than 25 percent of America’s nearly 600,000 bridges need significant repairs or are burdened with more traffic than they were designed to carry. #22 In Georgia, the county of Clayton recently eliminated its entire public bus system in order to save 8 million dollars. #23 Things have gotten so bad in Stockton, California that the police union put up a billboard with the following message: “Welcome to the 2nd most dangerous city in California. Stop laying off cops.” #24 Major cities such as Philadelphia, Baltimore and Sacramento have instituted “rolling brownouts” in which various city fire stations are shut down on a rotating basis. So if you live in one of those cities and you have a fire, you had better hope that your local fire station is not scheduled for a “brownout” that day. As I have documented in article after article, the “American Dream” is rapidly becoming the American Nightmare. We were once a nation that was endlessly expanding, endlessly growing and endlessly becoming more powerful, but now just the opposite is happening. All of this didn’t happen overnight. Back in 1982, Billy Joel could see what was starting to happen and he released a song entitled “Allentown” which captured the depression that many residents of once great steel cities were experiencing. The song started out with these two lines…. Well we’re living here in Allentown Well, the United States has lost over 42,000 factories since 2001 and now all of America is turning into “Allentown”.And they’re closing all the factories down Unfortunately, things are going to get even worse. Thousands more factories and millions more jobs will be sent overseas. The debt loads of our state and local governments will continue to skyrocket. The truth is that city after city after city is going to start looking like something out of a third world country. But perhaps you disagree. Perhaps you believe that America’s greatest days are just around the corner. I'm not sure all of the country's fate is Detriot's, but the writer makes a compelling case that certainly large portions are already well on the way to such a place. DC, Wall St. Houston couldn't care less it seems. | |
For years certain pundits and political scientists have insisted that money is not all that important in winning elections. Large sums expended on campaigns glean only an extra percentage point or two in votes, we are told, and often the candidate who spends the most ends up losing anyway.
“Other Variables”
In 2010 Republican candidate Meg Whitman smothered the California gubernatorial contest with $142 million of her own money but still lost to Jerry Brown who spent a mere $24 million, along with another $27 million or so put up by independent groups. Such results are seized upon by those who argue that money does not guarantee victory. They insist that other variables—such as party affiliation, incumbency, candidate’s image, and key issues—may be the deciding factors.
True, but we should remember that these “other variables” themselves are most likely to gather form and substance within a well-financed campaign. Feeding on large sums, a candidate can promote his image in a highly favorable light and advertise (or bury) the issues as best suit him, all the while casting mean shadows upon his financially weaker opponent.
Getting back to California’s Meg and Jerry show: candidates who win while spending less than their opponents, as Jerry Brown did, still usually have to spend quite a lot, about $50 million in his case. While never a surefire guarantor of victory, a large war chest—even if not the largest—is usually a necessary condition. In sum, money may not guarantee victory, but a serious lack of it almost always guarantees defeat.
No Money, No Game
Without large sums, there is rarely much of a campaign, as poorly funded “minor” candidates have repeatedly discovered. A candidate needs money for public relations consultants, pollsters, campaign travel, meals, canvassers, poll watchers, office space, telephones, computers, faxes, mailings, and, most of all, media advertisements.
Indeed what makes someone a “minor” candidate is the lack of a sufficient war chest—which leads to the lack of sufficient campaign visibility. Conversely, someone with a huge war chest is likely to be treated by the media as a “major” candidate. So money not only influences who wins, but who runs and who is taken seriously when running. Rich candidates sometimes are backed by party leaders explicitly because they have personal wealth and can use it to wage an effective campaign.
One of my favorite examples is Steve Forbes who ran unsuccessfully for the GOP presidential nomination in 2000. Of lackluster personality and fuzzy program, Forbes had never held public office in his life and had no close links to Republican Party regulars. But being able to spend $30 million of his personal fortune (back when $30 million was still an exceptional amount for a presidential primary), Forbes was immediately treated by the media as a serious contender. He even won Republican primaries in two states.
Money Primary, Media Primary, and Voting Primary
In all, there are three primaries not one. There is the voting primary, the one we all know about and sometimes participate in. But before that is the media primary and before that the money primary.
Decades ago, candidates used to play down how much money the private interests were pouring into their coffers. It was understood that a heavily financed candidate would owe a lot of favors to a lot of fat cats and could hardly promote himself as a champion of the ordinary voters.
Today candidates openly flaunt the size of their war chests at the early stages of a primary in the hope of taking on an appearance of invincibility, thereby discouraging other candidates. This triumphalist imaging, in turn, attracts backing from still other big contributors.
During the 2000 Republican presidential primaries, George W. Bush won the money primary by raising $50 million four months before the first voting primary in New Hampshire. That sum came from just a small number of superrich donors. Several other GOP primary opponents dropped out after they discovered that most of the fat cats had already fed their checkbooks to Bush.
By the time Bush won his party’s nomination in July 2000, he had already spent over $97 million—and the campaign against his Democratic opponent had yet to begin. Thus, well before the actual election, a handful of superrich contributors winnow the field, predetermining who will run in the primaries at what level of strength and with what plausibility. Only the very rich get to “vote” in the money primary.
The candidates who lose the money primary swiftly lose the media primary also. This is especially true if they have progressive politics. Consider the valiant campaign waged in 2008 by Representative Dennis Kucinich for the Democratic presidential nomination. His advocacy of progressive reforms left him with little access to big money. As a poorly funded candidate he was immediately labeled in the media primary as a “minor” candidate.
The media label was self-fulfilling. Defined as a minor candidate, Kucinich was accorded hardly any serious media exposure. Having lost the money primary, he would now lose the media primary. One scarcely knew he was participating in debates with “major” candidates. Deprived of media exposure, Kucinich achieved near invisibility and consequently was unable to reach many voters who otherwise might have been interested in what he had to say.
Big Spenders = Big Winners
Let’s face it, candidates who are the bigger spenders may not always win but they usually do, as has been the case over the last fifteen years in more than 80 percent of House and Senate contests. Even in “open races,” with no incumbent running, better-funded candidates won 75 percent of the time.
According to a Public Citizen report on the 2010 midterm elections, in 58 of the 74 contests in which power changed hands, the winning candidates rode enormous waves of cash, outspending their opponents with funds from “shadowy front groups, giant corporations and the super rich.”
This does not establish a simple one-to-one causal relationship between money and victory. But given the central role money plays in launching a campaign and defining who is and who isn’t a “serious” candidate, how can we say it is without decisive impact?
The reactionary judicial activists on the Supreme Court do their best to advance the role of big money in politics. In decisions like the 2009 Citizens United case, the Court’s reactionary majority repeated its arcane contrivance that (1) rich corporations are “persons” with human rights and (2) money is a form of speech. By imposing spending limitations we supposedly are restricting free speech and violating the First Amendment. Some years ago Justice Stevens took issue with this fanciful fabrication, reminding us that “Money is property; it is not speech.”
But money is the kind of property that feeds into and mobilizes all sorts of other power resources. I haven’t mentioned the other influential roles that money plays beyond election campaigns: ownership of print and broadcast media, control of jobs, financing research institutes, recruiting and training conservative activists, bankrolling lobbyists, and the like.
Heed not the system’s apologists who treat a money-driven political process as a matter of no great moment. Truth be told: if you’re not in the money, you’re not much in the game. It’s time we faced up to the plutocracy that masquerades as democracy.
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