Here is to US imperlialism

[Darth Wong]

Since this thread seems to have somehow turned into "communism vs capitalism" since I last checked in a while ago, I would like to point out that while I support capitalism, it still must be regulated. Capitalism is basically a democracy of the market (as opposed to the communist "central control" idea). When it works, it works well. However, like any democracy, it is possible for the power elite to hijack the system so that the people who supposedly wield all the power (the consumers and corporate shareholders, who occupy the position analogous to "voter" in a democracy) have no real choices and therefore no real power.

In a democracy, when you have two corrupt parties to choose from (both of whom promise the same things), you as the voter have no real power. This is not a secret; it is a longstanding complaint about our form of government. It may be better than the alternative, but that doesn't mean it couldn't stand some improvement.

Similarly, when you are a consumer or a shareholder and your choices are artificially limited, you have no real power. When you have no real power, the system doesn't work. In short, capitalism is great, but it does not work when consumers and shareholders' choices are artificially limited, or when people are allowed to abuse the system. That's why it's important to stop monopolies and inside traders in their tracks, and that's why it's important to cut the knees out from greedy corporate lawyers, accountants, and CEOs who abuse the system in order to steal shareholders' money. The notion that the shareholders won't allow them to do this is a joke; we have observed that in case after case, they have repeatedly allowed them to do this. Remember the scientific method: observation trumps theory.

[David]

People will always want more.

[David]

And the failures of this world will always find ways of blaming their loss on those who are successful.

[John]

1) Kill a Commie for your mommie.
2)I'd rather be killing commmunists.
3) Better dead than Red.
4) The only good commie is a dead commie.
Communism is such a joke that it is hard to believe ANYONE takes it seriously in this day and age.
Edited for grammatical errors.

[David]

That's twice you have posted that John, please stop. for you are trolling.

[John]

Really? Damn, I have to stop posting when I'm drunk.

[David]

Really? Damn, I have to stop posting when I'm drunk.

Your probably right.

[John]

Actually, it's "You're probably right" As in You Are. Remember sixth grade english?

[David]

"Correvtion"?

[John]

D'oh!

[Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi]

Okay, we've drifted to some sarcastic tribute to imperialism, to Communism vs. Capitalism, to John's trolling!

[John]

I am not fishing using light tackle dragged behind a slow moving boat!

[Resident Commie]

However, like any democracy, it is possible for the power elite to hijack the system so that the people who supposedly wield all the power (the consumers and corporate shareholders, who occupy the position analogous to "voter" in a democracy) have no real choices and therefore no real power

.

My point exactly.
So would this be considered a hijacking?



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Furthermore, while a crackdown on corporate malpractices has finaly occured. What is currently being pushed for by the Bush administration, is not nearly enough. Along with newer better legislation we need stronger enforcement. But how will this be posible with media and corporations still in denial and the questions in the government's legitimacy, specificly with the Executive branch.

Here's a report on Bush's endless hypocrisy:

"Bush: Corporate Confidence Man

By Charlie Cray and Lee Drutman
Special to CorpWatch
July 10, 2002

President Bush talks tough. To hear him tell it, "My administration will do everything in our power to end the days of cooking the books, shading the truth, and breaking our laws." He wants to restore "confidence" so much that he used the word 13 times in his speech on Wall Street, and 9 times at a press conference the day before.

Despite all the rhetoric about getting "tough" on corporate crime, Bush's Corporate Responsibility plan is pretty anemic-- not what you'd expect from a president desperate to keep the current crisis from becoming a major political liability for his party and his own presidency.

Take, for example, the Executive Order establishing the Corporate Fraud Task Force. It sounds good. But there's no additional funding or staff, just a directive that a bunch of government agencies talk to each other more often about the things you'd expect they'd be talking to each other about a lot these days - securities fraud, mail and wire fraud, money laundering, and tax fraud. In fact, the Los Angeles Times reports that in May Bush actually reduced the number of FBI agents on the corporate crime beat by 59, redeploying them for the anti-terrorism effort. So it looks like the Fraud Task Force is itself a fraud.

Then there's Bush's call to increase the SEC's budget by $100 million. That's a pittance compared to what SEC observers say is needed. Just two weeks ago, both parties in the House voted 422-4 to increase the SEC's grossly underfunded $430 million budget by 77%. In fact, Bush's increase barely matches a request made in March by SEC Chair Harvey Pitt to increase the commission's staff and pay. A request, by the way, that was denied.

Bush praises the House for "passing needed legislation to encourage transparency and accountability in American business." But the Republican bill he refers to does nothing of the sort - it punts the issue to the SEC for further study. He says he wants the SEC "to adopt new rules to ensure that auditors will be independent," but he refrains from supporting a bill currently on the Senate floor (the Sarbanes bill) that would do this by separating auditing and consulting and rotating auditors.

Bush also praises the House for passing pension reforms that will "expand workers' access to sound investment advice, and allow them to diversify out of company stock." But that bill requires workers to wait 3 years to diversify out of company stock - far too long when executives can sell whenever they want. Bush says, "what's fair for the workers is fair for the bosses." Funny, the House Republican bill that he praises actually would remove a provision that requires employers to offer the same plan to all employees.

Many of Bush's proposals are articulated in vague language that would probably be subject to much interpretation. For instance, the Bush plan would: "require corporate leaders to tell the public promptly whenever they buy or sell company stock for personal gain." But what does he mean by "promptly" - waiting 34 weeks?"

-------------------------------
David

The poor are not getting poorer, the rich are getting richer. Which is not bad, because they have earned it. You act as if some evil bastards plotted their way into being CEOs. Most CEOs spends years going to college and then proving they can do their job by working their way up.

Actually the US Census begs to differ.

"If poverty is measured using a broader standard preferred by many experts that includes as income the Earned Income Tax Credit and food and housing benefits and subtracts federal income and payroll taxes, the average poor person fell $2,527 below the poverty line in 2000. By comparison, using the same measure, the income of the average poor person fell $2,048 below the poverty line in 1989, and $2,059 below the poverty line in 1979. (All dollar figures in this analysis are adjusted for inflation, using the CPI-U, and expressed in 2000 dollars.) The average poor person fell further below the poverty line in 1999 and 2000 than in any other year on record; these data are available back to 1979.

A related measure of the severity of poverty in a population is the "poverty gap." The poverty gap is the amount by which the incomes of all poor people fall below the poverty line. The poverty gap reflects both the number of people who are poor and the depth of their poverty. In 2000, the poverty gap, using the broader measure of poverty described above, was $66.5 billion."



Falcon

The CEOs of ImCLone, Enron, etc... are not typical of the system. They made their money illegally, through lies and deciet, not through legitimate market practices. There is no correlation between the activities of these few companies and the rest of the companies currently in business. Attempts to lump all CEOs into the same pile isn't justified by the facts.

When did I say they were typical of the system and call "ALL" CEOs guilty of the same crimes? Never. I mearly stated that CEOs that commit crimes continue to gain from their dead business, while it is the workers who loose everything.

Here is a list of 30+ somewhat known and somewhat less know corporate scandals that have been uncovered post-enron.

http://www.citizenworks.org/enron/corp-scandal.php

While these companies have such scandals, in almost everyone of these companies' CEOs were compensated millions of $ in salaries, stock options, and bonuses.

Company profit is how shareholders make their money. Do you know anything about the free market?

I was not referring to the company's profit, but the personal profit that CEOs recieved.

There are plenty of laws against fraud. If this were not so, the people involved in these current scandles wouldn't be in trouble, now would they? The same goes for the media. For media corporations not reporting the stories about big business fraud, I've seen a lot of lead stories on the nightly news. Strange how reality contradicts your statements..

Can you tell the people who lost their entire retirement plans when enron collapsed that everythink was fine because in the end the bad guys were caught. Of course not! Somethings should and could of been done to prevent this from happening. So why isn't working. Why have over 30 large and small companies been able to dodge the proverbial bullet.

As for the media care to take note that of the 10 mega-media corporations two of them are currently under investigation for accounting fraud.

---------------------------
Lastly John

Get off your stupid bigoted ass. And stop with the pointless ad hominem attacks.

Because im not a "real" commie, so shut the hell up.[/img]

[John]

Hey, at least I can spell and use proper grammar. And if you aren't a 'real' commie what are you? A 'pseudo-commie'? Or a Socialist? Either way, you're on the losing end of history pal. You seem to think that just because I was more clever, energetic, foresightful, etc, than you, that I must have cheated somehow, and don't deserve to be better off than your lazy ass.

[Darth Wong]

Hey, at least I can spell and use proper grammar. And if you aren't a 'real' commie what are you? A 'pseudo-commie'? Or a Socialist? Either way, you're on the losing end of history pal. You seem to think that just because I was more clever, energetic, foresightful, etc, than you, that I must have cheated somehow, and don't deserve to be better off than your lazy ass.

You know, you're starting to get tiresome. When you're in a debate, you are supposed to attack the argument, not the man. Do you even know what "ad hominem" means, and why it's considered a bad thing?

And by the way, stop trying to appeal to wealth. Nobody gives a flying fuck whether you have millionaires in your family, and they're certainly not going to accept it as proof that you are more "clever, energetic, foresightful, etc" than anybody else. Wealth is not necessarily a sign of intelligence, not for its owner and certainly not for its owner's relatives. Mike Tyson has wealth. OJ Simpson has wealth. George W. Bush has wealth. None of them are particularly intelligent.

[John]

Hey, at least I can spell and use proper grammar. And if you aren't a 'real' commie what are you? A 'pseudo-commie'? Or a Socialist? Either way, you're on the losing end of history pal. You seem to think that just because I was more clever, energetic, foresightful, etc, than you, that I must have cheated somehow, and don't deserve to be better off than your lazy ass.

You know, you're starting to get tiresome. When you're in a debate, you are supposed to attack the argument, not the man. Do you even know what "ad hominem" means, and why it's considered a bad thing?

Is that why RC ( and you) make AH attacks on GW?

And by the way, stop trying to appeal to wealth. Nobody gives a flying fuck whether you have millionaires in your family, and they're certainly not going to accept it as proof that you are more "clever, energetic, foresightful, etc" than anybody else. Wealth is not necessarily a sign of intelligence, not for its owner and certainly not for its owner's relatives. Mike Tyson has wealth. OJ Simpson has wealth. George W. Bush has wealth. None of them are particularly intelligent.

And how wealthy have I claimed to be?

[Resident Commie]

I can only reiterate what Mike has already said,

Do you even know what "ad hominem" means, and why it's considered a bad thing?

Ad hominem is an attack based purely on personal bias due to reputation, character, or demographic status. This is a logical fallacy or what my old calculus calls a piss poor method.

Second my attacks on Bush are based purely on fact, Heard of Harken?

Harken Energy:
- 1986: At the time Bush's oil company Spectrum 7, was facing bankruptcy. The only real asset it had was the name of the sitting vice president on its door. Rescue came in the form of Harken Energy. Harken absorbed Spectrum and Bush received Harken stock. He also won a lucrative consulting contract, liberal stock options and a seat on Harken's board.

- 1987: With its new high-profile director in place Harken proceeded with a $25 million stock offering underwritten by a Little Rock, Arkansas, brokerage house, Stephens, Inc.

- 1987-89: Despite the fact that Harken experienced multi-million losses year after year, Bush was granted $180,375 in unsecured company loans -- loans that were later "forgiven." In all during Bush's tenure on Harken's board the company approved over $341,000 in loans to directors and officers all of which were later forgiven.

- 1989: Harken faced the prospect of having to report year-end losses of $13.4 million. So, the company arranges -- and the board approves -- a sham sale of Harken subsidiary, Aloha Petroleum, to a group of Harken insiders. The company sells 80% of Aloha to the group, which pays for it with a $7.9 million loan from Harken. This manufactured "profit" allows Harken to reduce its reported losses for 1989 to a less shocking $3.3 million.

- 1990: In January Harken shocks the oil industry with the news that the little money-losing Texas company had beat Amoco and won an exclusive contract to drill for oil in the Gulf nation of Bahrain. Harken's stock jumps in price. The deal came at a critical moment for Harken. The company was broke. Worse than broke, it owned over $150 million to banks. Harken's board had formed a restructuring committee on which Bush was assigned to sit. The restructuring committee would work with outside consultants from Smith Barney to plumb the depths of Harken's troubles and come up with solutions.

That June, Bush found his own solution by unloading the bulk of his Harken stock -- 212,140 shares -- reaping $848,560. Bush did filed SEC Form 144 -- "Intention to Sell" before his sale. What he failed to do was follow up with the required SEC Form 4, which provides the SEC with the critical information needed to determine whether or not a company insider traded on public or non-public information.

Form 4 provides the SEC with two critical pieces of information -- how much and when -- exactly how many shares did Bush sell and the exact date of the sale. Instead of filing his Form 4 by the 10th of the month following the sale, as SEC rules require, Bush waited 8 months before filing the form. A lot of water had gone under the bridge by then. Harken's restructuring committee's report had been made public showing the company lost $23 million. Bush's sale on June 22, 1990, occurred several weeks before that news was made public.

In 1991 the SEC was asked to look into Bush's tardy filing and the SEC ordered Harken to reverse the sham sale of Aloha Petroleum. Harken restated its 1989 earnings to show a $13.4 million loss. At time of the SEC inquiry into Bush's insider trading charge, James A. Doty was the SEC's General Counsel. Doty now says he recused himself form the probe. But, the investigation was quickly closed without ever interviewing Bush or any other Harken director.


Bush is just as guilty as the rest of them.

[John]

Actually RC, you just don't like GW's political/moral/economic values, so that must make him stupid, cowardly, and criminal. If GW's financial dealings are corrupt, what about White Water? Are you honest enough to say that both are equally suspect? I doubt it. Besides, I know that anyone who buys a stock is taking a gamble. On the other hand, I don't belive the gov't should take care of me in my old age. How about you?

[Enforcer Talen]

-reads first page- yes! bwhahahaah! my annex canada page is reaching people! woo!

tho, you've prolly never seen my annex canada page. go there. post. be fruitful and multiply.

[Enforcer Talen]

-reads next 6 pages- damn. now you've switched to economics and my annex canada comment makes no sense.

[Falcon]

Furthermore, while a crackdown on corporate malpractices has finaly occured. What is currently being pushed for by the Bush administration, is not nearly enough. Along with newer better legislation we need stronger enforcement. But how will this be posible with media and corporations still in denial and the questions in the government's legitimacy, specificly with the Executive branch.

Bush's actions are too tough. Whats needed is enforcement and accountability, not more rules and regulations.

Actually the US Census begs to differ.

"If poverty is measured using a broader standard preferred by many experts that includes as income the Earned Income Tax Credit and food and housing benefits and subtracts federal income and payroll taxes, the average poor person fell $2,527 below the poverty line in 2000. By comparison, using the same measure, the income of the average poor person fell $2,048 below the poverty line in 1989, and $2,059 below the poverty line in 1979. (All dollar figures in this analysis are adjusted for inflation, using the CPI-U, and expressed in 2000 dollars.) The average poor person fell further below the poverty line in 1999 and 2000 than in any other year on record; these data are available back to 1979.

As your figures point out, the fall is marginal and open to interpertation of the data. I also fail to see how you can blame the rich for this, since the poor often get their jobs from the rich. Its not like some rich guy can bust into your house and rob you...

When did I say they were typical of the system and call "ALL" CEOs guilty of the same crimes? Never. I mearly stated that CEOs that commit crimes continue to gain from their dead business, while it is the workers who loose everything.

Then please be clear about it. It is not typical of all, or even most CEOs to commit crimes. So far it has only been a few companies, and they are in the process of sorting out the guilty.

Here is a list of 30+ somewhat known and somewhat less know corporate scandals that have been uncovered post-enron.

http://www.citizenworks.org/enron/corp-scandal.php

While these companies have such scandals, in almost everyone of these companies' CEOs were compensated millions of $ in salaries, stock options, and bonuses.

Were the CEOs involved in said scandles? Were the scandles proven factual? Were the compensations themselves illegal, or just the actions that precluded them?

I was not referring to the company's profit, but the personal profit that CEOs recieved.

A lot of the time the CEOs are the owners of the business, or own a large interest in it, or were hired to bring a company success. If they are making enough profit to justify their salaries then I don't see a problem.

Can you tell the people who lost their entire retirement plans when enron collapsed that everythink was fine because in the end the bad guys were caught. Of course not! Somethings should and could of been done to prevent this from happening. So why isn't working. Why have over 30 large and small companies been able to dodge the proverbial bullet.

I can tell them that more laws wouldn't have prevented their loss. I can also tell them that they got greedy. You see, enron matched every dollar in Enron stock they bought. Thats why they poured all their money into said shares. A very risky and ill thought out plan, as I'm sure they now know. Unfortunately they were all big boys and girls, so they can live with their own decisions. The only thing that needs to be changed is the policy that doesn't alow people to sell their 401k stock portfolio. What happened with Enron is that none of the people could sell their options as they watched them devalue.

As for the media care to take note that of the 10 mega-media corporations two of them are currently under investigation for accounting fraud.

I still see plenty of stories about big business fraud. Enough stories that I'm beginning to change the channel whenever they come up.

[Falcon]

Bush is just as guilty as the rest of them.

Hardly. The Form 4 is one insignificient form that comes after you've already sold your shares. Bush complied with all the other FCC regulations, and indeed did file the Form 4 later when the mistake was discovered. When the FCC investigated the circumstances surrounding the sale (which was so he could buy a baseball team btw) no wrong doings were found. He clearly is NOT as guilty as the rest, anything to the contrary is a desperate ghasp from the radical Bush hater crowd thats developed lately...

Unless of course you've done a better investigation than the FCC, in which case I'd love to see some evidence...

[Azeron]

You know Commie, your attacks have been pretty much been completely discredited by the cold hard truth of economic law.

I just wish these people were more interested in going after governemnt waste fraud and abuse and sending government officals to jail, than questioning the private sector which had a much better track record comparably.

Communisn is dead because it was built on a stack of lies like this. He bitchws and moans about corps, but when he needs to put cheap gas in his car, or write on a piece of paper that costs less than a cent a page, or fly anywhere, or drink a nice refreshing can of coke, or get life saving surgery performed with a new machine, or clothes that he can afford to wear, or an internet connection to bitch about capitialism and advocate communism, then he isd all for corporations. you are full of it. You decry the same people who butter your bread, and make your bread in the first place. The poor in this nation are richer than the vast majority of people on this planet. if it were a scale the poorest immigrant who gets a job cleaning a supermarket store is richer than about 5.3 billion people on this planet. Hows that for making people poor?

what an idiot.

[David]

You have finally seen him for what he truly is Azeron.

[Resident Commie]

Aside from Azeron's pointless and idiotic ad hominem attack and Falcon's strawmen there is nothing really worth of debate.

So here's a effortless deconstruction of Falcon's strawmen

Bush's actions are too tough. Whats needed is enforcement and accountability, not more rules and regulations.

First off I never supported Bush's plans of corporate reform, I stated they weren't enough otherwise inadequate. Along with enforcement we need to enact new laws and acts that will deal with the issues which have escaped media and public scrutiny.

These include, to:
Repeal the laws that shield lawyers, accountants and bankers from being sued for collusion in securities fraud and other corporate crimes.

Enacting legislation to establish Financial Consumer Associations, state-chartered, nonprofit organizations with fulltime staffs that can help consumers band together to serve as watchdogs on financial issues, such as securities fraud.

Create a Federal Bureau of Audits, an independent agency responsible for overseeing and regulating the accounting industry. In addition, auditors should be forbidden from providing any non-audit services such as consulting to the same clients.

Mandate strict separation between investment banking, insurance, and investment advice.

Close the revolving door between business and government

Eliminate the double standard for stock options, whereby companies can get a tax write-off for stock options without having to list it as an expense on their financial statements.

Require day-of disclosure for all executive stock sales.

Repeal the Taft-Hartley Act that unfairly obstructs tens of millions of American workers in companies like Wal-Mart from organizing trade unions to bargain for living wages.

As with enforcing we need to:

Actively enforce the 1934 Securities Exchange Act, which contains several securities fraud provisions, including prohibitions on insider trading and nondisclosure.

Give corporate criminals real jail time.

Revoke professional licenses for lawyers and accountants who aid in fraud.

Expand SEC disclosure standards to include environmental and social issues.

Double the Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) present budget of about $467 million for 2003.

As your figures point out, the fall is marginal and open to interpertation of the data. I also fail to see how you can blame the rich for this, since the poor often get their jobs from the rich. Its not like some rich guy can bust into your house and rob you...

Can you can the biggest growth of poverty since 1979 marginal. As with who is at fault of this. It goes directly back to the CEOs. They have the power to cut jobs and decide wages. Take a look at this statistic.



Is this justification?
The top job-cutters received an increase in salary and bonus of nearly 20% in 2000, compared to average raises in that year for U.S. wage workers of about 3% and for salaried employees of 4%. Overall CEO pay also rose in 2000 despite the 10% drop in the S&P 500.

Between 1996 and 1998, 41 large, profitable corporations used special tax breaks to reduce their corporate tax bill to less than zero, receiving outright federal tax rebate checks, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. (In contrast, the current rebates are paid only to people who paid income taxes.) As a group, the CEOs of these firms averaged pay hikes of 69% in the year of the rebate, far above the typical CEO raise of 38%. In six cases – Black & Decker, Praxair, Coca-Cola, Colgate-Palmolive, Enron, and McKesson – the CEO’s raise entirely consumed his company’s tax rebate for that year.

The increased wage inequity in 2000 continued a decade-long trend. If the minimum wage had grown at the same rate as CEO pay since 1990, 571%, it would now be $25.50 an hour, rather than $5.15 an hour

Were the CEOs involved in said scandles? Were the scandles proven factual? Were the compensations themselves illegal, or just the actions that precluded them?

What kind of question is this?!? Are you saying that the CEOs of Enron, Authur Anderson, ImClone, and WorldCom are not quilty. If you bothered to actually read the said scandals, they all deal with the crimes of CEOs gaining money by means of accounting fraud, insider trading and other illegal activities.

A lot of the time the CEOs are the owners of the business, or own a large interest in it, or were hired to bring a company success. If they are making enough profit to justify their salaries then I don't see a problem.

And this is why they have self enriched themselves. As for justification see chart above.

What happened with Enron is that none of the people could sell their options as they watched them devalue.

Exactly, they need to change the laws. To bad the CEO sold his sotcks before they took the plunge.

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As for Azeron don't become another bigoted dumbass like John. Where was communism brought into this debate legitimately. NOWHERE!!! Your pathetic, bringing up a false alternitive of communism, based on a even more unsubstantiated idotic ad hominem attack. Do rational people a favor and shut the hell up before you embarrass yourself.