The Bush administration and Wall Street – Two peas in a pod

George W. Bush likes to portray himself as a down-home Texan, the kind of guy you’d love to barbecue steaks or hunt with on the weekend. As most people know, Bush is in fact a child of Eastern establishment privilege, weaned in suburban Connecticut and the coast of Maine, grandson of a Wall Street partner and great-grandson of a brokerage house founder.

There’s no crime in being born rich. But the dichotomy between W.’s public persona and his family background has beclouded more dangerous parallels between the way his administration and Wall Street function on a daily basis.

Stock-market people often disagree on which way the economy is going. Bulls and bears are always in evidence, and an ironclad rule on the street is that if sentiment has shifted too strongly in one direction, the market will go the opposite way every time. There’s even a culture clash on Wall Street, between blueblood firms that specialize in investment banking and trading firms populated by blue-collar types. It’s not a monolith down there in the Canyon of Heroes.

Remarks prepared for Annual Free Press Awards Dinner

Native American Indian Center of Central Ohio
Sunday, April 30, 2006

Pachtama?waas ahhki Anishinabeok.

In the tongue of my Grandma's people, Mohican: "The Great Spirit blesses the land where we, the people, live."

God bless America!

Pachtama'waas ahhki Anishinabeok.

This is Goats in Prison, Volume 1 of the Free Press archives project.

I?m dedicating this never-ending quest to my aunt and uncle Bernice and Arvid Miller from the Mohican Nation Library in Wisconsin. Some of you may remember Arvid from the last page of Custer Died for Your Sins. He helped found the National Congress of American Indians, the United Nations of tribal governments. After he died, their cabin caught fire and all the young people, who never seemed to care much before, formed a bucket brigade and saved their library. Bernice was my Daddy?s childhood friend, and best, along with Bill Coleman, Chief Buffalo from the Aleut Scouts, first American to contact Japanese ground forces. When Aunt Bernice retired the Tribe hired twelve people to do her jobs and now she?s passed leaving over 220 direct Mohican descendents.

Social insecurity: the economic crisis ahead

Millions of Americans are deeply worried about their economic futures. The signs of the economic crisis ahead are literally everywhere, if one bothers to look at the statistical evidence.

The first, and most important indicator, is the unprecedented concentration of wealth within American society. According to USA Today columnist Yolanda Young, in 1970 the bottom one-third of all U.S. households (today, about 96 million people) “earned 10 times that of the top one percent” of all households. By 2004, the upper 1 percent “made as much as the bottom third of Americans.”

The vast destruction of millions of manufacturing jobs and out-sourcing of U.S. businesses have pushed growing millions of black, brown and working-class whites into what can be described as “the fringe economy.” Over half of all Americans, according to Young, now “live from paycheck to paycheck.”

Downsizing America's future

A quarter century ago, the United States embarked on an economic crusade to “downsize” its working class: to eliminate millions of jobs by outsourcing employment abroad, and to push millions more middle-class employees into low-wage jobs. The argument advanced by U.S. corporations was that in an age of global economic competition, American workers were simply “overpaid” and weren’t as productive as their European and Japanese competitors. By cutting salaries and benefits, terminating pensions, eliminating jobs, and forcing workers to pay for their own health care, U.S. corporations could stay competitive in global markets.

In the 1980s and early 1990s, the vast majority of layoffs occurred within the working class, especially skilled labor and manufacturing jobs. Blue collar workers were pushed in the service sector, frequently earning less than one-half of what they previously had been paid. Airplane mechanics and factory foremen were counseled to learn basic computer skills in order to compete for $10 per hour jobs that couldn’t cover their home mortgage payments or children’s college tuition bills.

Inheritance, wealth and race

In America, the overwhelming majority of Americans, regardless of their incomes and educational levels, describe themselves as “middle class.” That’s because nearly 75 percent of all Americans own their own homes, representing a substantial equity asset. Most also anticipate a windfall inheritance when their parents and/or elderly relatives die.

According to the federal government’s statistics compiled by Mark Zandi of “Moody’s Economy.com”, back in 1985, the average inheritance was $39,000. In subsequent years, the overall amount of total annual inheritance has more than doubled, reaching nearly $200 billion. Researchers at Boston College’s Center for Wealth and Philanthropy estimate that by 2050, approximately $25 trillion will be passed from the old to their offspring.” That’s an impressive amount of money, even for Bill Gates.

The so-called lobby reform bill

AUSTIN, Texas -- Either the so-called "lobby reform bill" is the contemptible, cheesy, shoddy piece of hypocrisy it appears to be ... or the Republicans have a sense of humor.

The "lobby reform" bill does show, one could argue, a sort of cheerful, defiant, flipping-the-bird-at-the-public attitude that could pass for humor. You have to admit that calling this an "ethics bill' requires brass bravura.

House Republicans returned last week from a two-week recess prepared to vote for "a relatively tepid ethics bill," as The Washington Post put it, because they said their constituents rarely mentioned the issue.

Forget all that talk back in January when Jack Abramoff was indicted. What restrictions on meals and gifts from lobbyists? More golfing trips! According to Rep. Nancy L. Johnson of Connecticut, former chair of the House ethic committee, passage of the bill will have no political consequences "because people are quite convinced that the rhetoric of reform is just political."

Taken for granted

http://mattbors.com

The "New Totalitarianism" now defines a desperate neo-con end game

As the Bush/neo-con kleptocracy disintegrates in a toxic cloud of military defeat, economic bankruptcy, environmental disaster and escalating mega-scandal, its attack on basic American freedoms---its "New Totalitarianism"---has escalated to a desperate new level, including brutal Soviet-style prosecutions against non-violent dissidents and an all-out offensive for state secrecy, including an attack on the internet.

In obvious panic and disarray, the GOP right has turned to a time-honored strategy---kill the messengers. While it slaughters Americans and Iraqis to "bring democracy" to the Middle East, it has made democracy itself public enemy Number One here at home.

The New Totalitarianism has become tangible in particular through a string of terrifying prosecutions against non-violent dissenters, an attack on open access to official government papers, and the attempted resurrection by right-wing "theorists" of America's most repressive legislation, dating back to the 1950s, 1917 and even 1797.

Bush's universal spy campaign is the cutting edge of the assault. The

Armed Madhouse

For the past two years, I've nearly disappeared from BBC Television screens and from newspapers so my team could focus on our most important investigation yet. I've put it in a book: Armed Madhouse. The book travels from Beijing to New Orleans to Caracas to Baghdad to New Mexico ... a five-part investigation of global economic piggery so deep, dark and devious you just have to scream or cry -- or laugh.

Don't be fooled by the fact that 'Armed Madhouse' is entertaining -- this is my most serious reporting yet -- connecting oil panic, Hurricane Katrina, Chinese currency, Venezuela's petrodollars, disappearing ballots, Thomas Friedman, more oil, and the murder of General Motors. These are dispatches from the front lines of the class war.

Rove's status as "Official A" spells indictment

It's beginning to look a lot like Fitzmas, as they say in Democratic circles. It's likely the former top policy advisor for President Bush will soon come under federal indictment for his role in the CIA leak case. In the Fall '05 indictment of VP Dick Cheney's former chief I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Rove is repeatedly referred to as "Official A." According to legal experts, individuals given that status typically get indicted. More significant, of all the cases prosecuted by independent counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, who's leading the investigation, every single "Official A" was indicted. Not a good sign for Turd Blossom.

On Wednesday, Rove was called before the grand jury for a fifth time, and faced 3 1/2 hours of grueling questioning by Fitzpatrick. Given the amount of times he's been called to testify, and the amount of time he spent under oath this week, it's becoming increasingly certain that an indictment is imminent.

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