No, this was no April Fool's Joke, said the outraged Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell. Transocean, which owned and operated the doomed Deepwater Horizon rig, put out filings April 1, stating that it had actually had its "best year in safety performance" and was rewarding its executives with bonuses. Never mind those pictures of viscous Gulf water and oil-slimed wildlife. Only after The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, among others, eviscerated Transocean did the company announce that the safety bonuses would instead go to families of the workers who died in the rig explosion. Lest you think this is a full mea culpa, Forbes' Jeff McMahon points out that 5 executives will still get $650,000, bonus money that is not attached to safety goals.
Surely without the hue and cry these executives would have gotten away with it. Their attempt to snatch personal gain from the jaws of epic defeat is just the latest assault on common sense by the "1 percent", as economist and Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz describes America's super-elite in a new Vanity Fair piece called "Of the 1%, By the 1%, For the 1%."
He examines the roots behind the vast increase in income inequality in recent decades. It is surely no coincidence that during this same period, a new breed of power broker has emerged, players who shape public policy to fit their own, not fully disclosed, private agendas while purportedly working in the public interest. These unregistered agents of influence evade registration and oversight: Janine calls them shadow lobbyists. And when their policy influence leads to real-world trauma for the other 99 percent, these power brokers don't generally slink into obscurity. They continue demanding high-profile rewards, and often getting them.
Stiglitz describes well the intertwining of state and private power, a key theme in Janine's Shadow Elite:
The personal and the political are today in perfect alignment. Virtually all U.S. senators, and most...[House] representatives...are members of the top 1 percent....are kept in office by money from the top 1 percent, and know that if they serve the top 1 percent well they will be rewarded by the top 1 percent when they leave office. By and large, the key executive-branch policymakers on trade and economic policy also come from the top 1 percent. When pharmaceutical companies receive a trillion-dollar gift--through legislation prohibiting the government...from bargaining over price--it should not come as cause for wonder....Given the power of the top 1 percent, this is the way you would expect the system to work.
A string of smaller, but still terrible disasters can be traced to weak regulation and/or spotty enforcement: the half-billion eggs that had to be recalled last year; a 2009 plane crash that killed 50 people, which Frontline traced back to the "cozy" relationship between the FAA and carriers, allowing some of them to operate flights despite safety violations; and several mine disasters that have killed dozens in recent years. A Washington Post analysis found that more than 200 former congressional staffers, regulators and retired lawmakers work for the mining industry as lobbyists, senior executives, or consultants. Those last two roles make it possible for top power brokers to shadow lobby - they go unregistered simply by evading formal registration and refusing the accept the title of lobbyist, even if lobbying is essentially what they are doing.
So what does all this have to do with bonuses? A signature feature of the shadow lobbyist era is not just a manipulation of public policy, but also an embrace of "failing upward". No matter the track record, the elite 1 percent seek more of the same. Transocean executives thought they deserved rich bonuses, as did their unabashed, deeply entitled peers on Wall Street, despite their staggering failures.
The CEO of mine operator Massey, who retired a few months back, is due to get a reported 12 million dollars, a year after Massey's Upper Big Branch mine exploded, killing dozens. And then there's egg producer Jack DeCoster, who's been called "Teflon Chicken Don." For years DeCoster has fought various workplace safety and environmental violations. Yet here's what one lawyer who sued DeCoster's company said about him, to Tribune reporter Andrew Zajac: "He gets fined and things happen to him, but he comes back. He always bounces back."
The insulation from failure is galling, to be sure, but it's much more than that. It is both an outrage and a clear and present danger. If executives and stealth power brokers face no repercussions for making risky bets or pushing the limits on safety to save a buck or working the system to their advantage no matter the consequences, what incentive do they have to act more responsibly in the future?
This week, at least, Transocean's attempt to rebrand its failure and reward its executives was stopped in its tracks by public shaming, most effectively by Jon Stewart. He suggested that if you follow Transocean's statistical "logic" on their 2010 safety record, then 1937 was actually a banner year for the company that made ... the Hindenburg. Even for the most brazen of the 1 percent, that is one brand name no one wants to their name next to. For a change, those trying to fail upwards got a much-needed come-down.
Note to Readers: Janine is tweeting more regularly. Follow her on Twitter @janinewedel.
I love that those that pilfer the middle class get further tax breaks then tells the middle class we have an entitlement problem. They have said it so much that most take it at face value. We do not have an entitlement problem, we have a mal-taxation, revenue, evil wealth allocation problem.
Until Americans do their homework the fraud will continue.
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http://books.EgbertoWillies.com
Lowering tax rates on capital gains, which is how the rich receive a large portion of their income, has given the wealthiest Americans close to a free ride.
Monopolies and near monopolies have always been a source of economic power--from John D. Rockefeller at the beginning of the last century to Bill Gates at the end.
Lax enforcement of anti-trust laws, especially during Republican administrations, has been a godsend to the top 1 percent.
Much of today's inequality is due to manipulation of the financial system, enabled by changes in the rules that have been bought and paid for by the financial industry itself--one of its best investments ever.
The government lent money to financial institutions at close to 0 percent interest and provided generous bailouts on favorable terms when all else failed. Regulators turned a blind eye to a lack of transparency and to conflicts of interest.
Wealth begets power, which begets more wealth.... The Supreme Court, in its recent Citizens United case, has enshrined the right of corporations to buy government, by removing limitations on campaign spending.
http://www.henrymakow.com/stiglitz.html
What did we think would happen, to men and women, in these glass towers? The point of course, not tearing down the towers, but changing consciousness.
www.offthegridmpls.blogspot.com
It can't continue, that's for sure. And unfortunately, the majority of this country just accepts it!! Can you say "The fall of the Roman Empire"??
Absolutely pathetic.
We complain about the rich and economic disparities. Then precisely we practice TRICKLE-UP ECONOMICS, by pouring money in programs that use the poor to feed the rich; especially the elite.
America spends 17% of its GDP on healthcare. Our European competitors spend 5%-11% of GDP. So where does the third of the 'healthcare GDP' (700 Billion dollars) go?
The problem is not revenues though we have to raise taxes to pay off our 15.5 Trillion debt.
Problem is the 1.6 Trillion annual budget deficit; because we spend too much on everything compared to everybody else. The 39 billion cut agreed by Congress is only 2% of the budget; while the budget deficit is 40%.
The "Ownership Society" program allegedly aimed to help the low-income wage-earners to be home owners, ended-up boosting the wealth of the super-elites - bankers, hedge fund managers, etc.
And despite all this experience of past economic models we are never short of more models to use the poor to enrich the wealthy.
Drug and insurance companies of course. That's why we wanted real healthcare reform without a policy of corporate welfare for those guys.
And that's why there is NO movement for making the rich pay for making their money on the backs of the middle class and the working poor. Our WHOLE governing body is part of the top one per cent. And all they do is posture and play "ain't it awful" wringing their hands, pretending they are on the side of the tax-paying majority. Time to bring out the tumbrels.
Until corporations give us accountability, we will continue to spend 4 to 8 times as much on healthcare than Obamacare. They are now the middleman. Until that stops, the doctors, professional psychiatrists and others will get only a third to a quarter of what we give them as patients. The only hiring we get are minimum wage, and midlevel jobs. Few are a living wage, which is why the whole country is in debt. Yes, we should demand more accountability. The government already has plenty of accountability. Private corporations have none. They don't even have to pay taxes!
I think you're confusing CEO with owner & perhaps entrepreneur. They're not necessarily the same thing.
“If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them, will deprive the people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.” - Thomas Jefferson
“The system of banking [is] a blot left in all our Constitutions, which, if not covered, will end in their destruction... I sincerely believe that banking institutions are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity... is but swindling futurity on a large scale.”
- Thomas Jefferson
“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a moneyed aristocracy that has set the Government at defiance. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs.”
- Thomas Jefferson
General Electric Paid No Federal Taxes in 2010
General Electric, paid nothing in federal taxes last year, even as it made billions in profit
Most U.S. Corporations Pay No Income Tax
Two out of every three United States corporations paid no federal income taxes from 1998 through 2005, according to a report released Tuesday by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress.
All this problem is because of this rich 1% of people of the USA. isn't it?
let us ask them to get out of USA, pack their bags and get out of USA.
PROBLEM SOLVED.
So you can throw the rich out of the country just so long as you are volunteering to make up the difference in taxes paid to the government.