Learning to hate the corruption

This nation was founded on the principles of freedom and equality of opportunity. It was about the people. But the focus has changed - the money-worshipping wealthy have taken charge and they are doing everything they can to diminish the role of the people, to get you to believe that if only the big corporations can have their way on every issue that the world will be perfect. But they are wrong - dead wrong - corporations were built by people in order to serve people - we were not put on this earth to serve big business.

From the Washington Post.

The corporate 'predator state'

By Katrina vanden Heuvel, Published: March 26

Bipartisan agreement in Washington usually means citizens should hold on to their wallets or get ready for another threat to peace. In today's politics, the bipartisan center usually applauds when entrenched interests and big money speak. Beneath all the partisan bickering, bipartisan majorities are solid for a trade policy run by and for multinationals, a health-care system serving insurance and drug companies, an energy policy for Big Oil and King Coal, and finance favoring banks that are too big to fail.

Economist James Galbraith calls this the "predator state," one in which large corporate interests rig the rules to protect their subsidies, tax dodges and monopolies. This isn't the free market; it's a rigged market.

Wall Street is a classic example. The attorney general announces that some banks are too big to prosecute. Despite what the FBI called an "epidemic of fraud," not one head of a big bank has gone to jail or paid a major personal fine. Bloomberg News estimated that the subsidy they are provided by being too big to fail adds up to an estimated $83 billion a year.

Corporate welfare is, of course, offensive to progressives. The Nation and other media expose the endless outrages - drug companies getting Congress to ban Medicare negotiating bulk discounts on prices, Big Oil protecting billions in subsidies, multinationals hoarding a couple of trillion dollars abroad to avoid paying taxes, and much more.