The Dark Knights of the Business Roundtable




The Overlords of the USA Plan Their Strategy

 If you were wondering just where this upstart renegade company Standard and Poor's gets off downgrading the credit of the United States Government, just follow the power money trail.  S&P is a subsidiary of the McGraw-Hill Corporation, whose CEO, Harold McGraw III, is also chairman of the Business Roundtable (BRT), heavy-hitting lobbyist bar none.  From the BRT's own website:

Business Roundtable (BRT) is an association of chief executive officers of leading U.S. companies with nearly $6 trillion in annual revenues and more than 13 million employees. BRT member companies comprise nearly a third of the total value of the U.S. stock market and invest more than $114 billion annually in research and development – nearly half of all private U.S. R&D spending. Our companies pay more than $179 billion in dividends to shareholders and give nearly $9 billion a year in combined charitable contributions.

That third of the Stock Market hasn't been doing so hot lately, has it?  And it's all the government's fault, according to S&P, aka McGraw-Hill, aka the BRT -- because the genius CEOs of its membership had forecast the economy would be booming, customers would be buying, and they would be hiring two months ago.  Here's what they gushed on June 15th:

..Our CEOs expect increased sales and as a result plan to increase capital investments, US hiring over the next six months.
So just quickly looking at the charts that you have in front of you, on sales fairly consistent with results from the first quarter, 87% of member CEOs anticipate sales will increase, 12% expect sales to remain the same and 2% of CEOs expect sales to decline.
Last quarter none expected lower sales, so it’s pretty close to last quarter’s results. On capital spending 61% of member CEOs project higher spending in the next six months, about the same as the 62% who projected increased spending last quarter; 32% expect spending to remain the same. And only 7% project a decline, again about even with last quarter’s 6%. On employment, 51% of member CEOs expect to add US employees, roughly the same as the 52% who did last quarter; 38% expect employment to remain steady, and 11% project lower employment which is exactly the same as last quarter.

Uh-oh. Who to blame for their glaring failure in forecasting?  Themselves?  No way.  Better to get their fall guy at Standard and Poor's to issue a bad report card and falsely blame the whole mess on the debt and the deficit. And then get Paul Krugman to blame S&P.  Heaven forbid the CEOs should blame the tanking economy on their own highly successful infiltration of all levels of government, their own responsibility for the very real Eurozone debt crisis, and their own wildly triumphant efforts at self-serving legislation here at home. And of course, get the two wildly alike political parties to blame each other. You can never have enough scapegoats when you're in the Forbes 400.

The BRT, which has been called President Obama's "closest ally in the business community", was founded during the Nixon Administration  for the express purpose of fighting back against labor unions and government regulation.  Among its early successes was the defeat of the first-ever Consumer Protection Agency, proposed by Ralph Nader in 1977.  It's been going strong ever since. It blocked a punitive labor law reform bill that would have made it illegal for corporations to intimidate workers who wanted to form unions.  During the Reagan era, it was instrumental in cutting corporate taxes.  It has had its tentacles in the enactment of every free trade policy initiative, including being the big money behind NAFTA.

It goes on and on ad nauseum. From Wikipedia: 

 The Roundtable also successfully opposed changes in corporate governance that would have made boards of directors and CEOs more accountable to stockholders. In 1986, the Roundtable convinced the Securities and Exchange Commission to forgo new rules on merger and acquisitions, and in 1993 convinced President Clinton to water down his plan to impose penalties on excessive executive salaries. Citicorp CEO, John Reed, chairperson of the Roundtables Accounting Task Force, argued that Clinton's plan would have had negative effects on U.S. competitiveness. The Roundtable's Health, Welfare, and Retirement Income Task Force, chaired by Prudential Insurance CEO Robert C. Winters, cheered President Bush's (Medicare prescription drug) plan, which consisted mainly of subsidies to the health care industry.

The Phony Debt Ceiling Crisis is a perfect example of Shock Doctrine Capitalism.  Instead of blaming the terrible economy on greed run amock, why not blame it on government overspending and the almighty deficit?  Pay no attention to the fact that the BRT spider web of toxic corporations caused the biggest loss of household wealth in American history. Blame it instead on its own victims and get more money for themselves by slashing the social safety net in order to save it for future generations.  Spread the false doctrine of debt, and call for shared sacrifice from the masses. Issue a phony credit rating report card and cow the masses into accepting an undemocratic "super congress" Politburo of 12 Partisans to seal their fate. Get a complicit Democratic president to change the meaning of the word "progressive" into a movement that embraces austerity as a virtue, and instills fear of an impending right-wing theocratic movement even worse than the soft fascism already squeezing us with its velvet glove and calm, dulcet tones.


Jobs?  Our government's idea of a job creation program is to make life easier for the Dark Knights of the Business Roundtable.  Cut their taxes, repatriate their profits, stop implementation of EPA clean air standards so these Lords of Finance will feel confident enough to hire.  Never mind they'd sooner have us choke to death than look at us.

Is it any coincidence that the chairman of Obama's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness is the same head honcho of G.E. and BRT official who pays absolutely no corporate taxes and has outsourced the vast majority of jobs overseas?  Is it any coincidence that the CEO of Honeywell International (biggest creator of superfund toxic waste sites in history) is Obama's Roundtable jobs spokesman on all the TV talk shows?  Is it any wonder that when Obama talks up climate change, he is not referring to greenhouse gases and the weather, but in changing the "business" climate in their favor? 


Roundtable Extension: White House Council on Jobs (not) and Competiveness (corporate profits)



Coming soon: the Occupation of Wall Street in September and the March on Washington in October.

The Eternal Bush Tax Cuts of the Barackian Mind?

Obama apologists are pointing to the planned expiration of the Bush tax cuts  in 2013 as reason to believe that the president will follow through on his much-vaunted balanced approach to match revenues with cuts.  By simply letting them expire as planned, he will not have to engage in another fight with the GOP, as conventional wisdom tells it.  But here's what he said in his radio address today:

We need to extend tax cuts for working and middle class families so you have more money in your paychecks next year.  That would help millions of people to make ends meet.  And that extra money for expenses means businesses will have more customers, and will be in a better position to hire.  

It looks to be shaping up into the same-ole same-ole ploy of the president being held hostage on the tax cuts.  Again, he will have to "cave" to Republicans' demands to extend the cuts for the millionaires and billionaires too, in order to "save the middle class".

And there are more hints of No New Taxes for corporations and his continuing nonsensical belief in the confidence fairy, despite the Wall Street plunge and the S&P downgrade:

So our job right now has to be doing whatever we can to help folks find work; to help create the climate where a business can put up that job listing; where incomes are rising again for people. We’ve got to rebuild this economy and the sense of security that middle class has felt slipping away for years.  And while deficit reduction has to be part of our economic strategy, it’s not the only thing we have to do.

Climate change the corporatist Obama way is to reduce pesky regulations, maybe repatriate those overseas profits for little to no taxation, and never, ever utter the anti-Norquistian "R" word -- Revenue: 

We’ve got to cut the red tape that stops too many inventors and entrepreneurs from quickly turning new ideas into thriving businesses – which holds back our whole economy.

On another, more realistic note, at least one Democrat is calling it as he sees it.  Of course, Dennis Kucinich of Ohio is being redistricted out of a job, so he has nothing to lose by speaking truth to power. Thanks to Jay-Ottawa for this link to his radio interview with Truthdig.  From the transcript:

Dennis Kucinich: Well, I think you have to first of all define terms. I don’t know if you can define what it means to be a Democrat anymore—or, for that matter, Republican, or labels like liberal conservative. I think it’s an appropriate time for all of us to begin to question the utility of labels which seem to defy the performance of public officials. And what’s conservative, for example, about extending the Bush tax cuts—which by the way will cost, through 2020, $2.56 trillion—what’s conservative about blowing billions of dollars on wars? On the other hand, what does it mean to be a Democrat if you’re willing to put social programs on a chopping block—put the cornerstone of the Democratic Party’s social ethic, which includes Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, on a chopping block—not come up with a massive jobs program, knowing that signing this deal would limit your ability to create jobs—what does that mean? What does it mean to be a Democrat? What does that mean? So we have to define terms. We’re trapped in a system where we somehow believe that all we have to do is change the players and we’re going to get a different outcome. Maybe not. Because within the logic of this system, now supported or buttressed by Citizens United and Buckley v. Valeo, is a system of corporate governance which impresses itself upon the people of the United States for its own benefit, to the people’s detriment, and has helped to create in government very efficient mechanisms to accelerate the wealth of the nation upward.
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The Incredible Pivoting President

Now that President Obama has completed his lead role in Phony Debt Ceiling Crisis Theater and helped tear the first gaping hole in the social safety net at the bidding of his oligarchic masters, it's time for him to pretend to care about "The American People" again.  With a straight face and nary a peep from the corporate media -- just days after neglecting to extend longterm unemployment benefits and the payroll tax holiday* -- he is performing his umpteenth Pivot to Jobs!  He will be touring middle America in a big bus, Palin-style.  The folksy talking points and hypnotic repetitive slogans are already being crafted inside the busy little heads of his campaign operatives. (He's already borrowing the "It Gets Better" phrase from his anti-bullying initiative). He'll be spinning faster than an Olympian figure skater vying for the gold medal.

(If you Google the words "Obama, Pivot, Jobs" you will get over 17,000 hits for news articles and blogs containing the so-original pivoting meme).

Despite Thursday's panicky Wall Street sell-off, the Labor Department numbers out today were slightly less horrendous than originally feared. Obama managed to magically transform the news into prosperity that is just around the corner.  But not so fast -- even with the edition of 117,000 private sector jobs, the situation is not only stagnant, it's getting worse. According to economist Dean Baker:

This rate of job growth is below the 90,000 a month needed to keep pace with the growth of the labor force. Consistent with this fact, the employment-to-population ratio (EPOP) fell slightly to 58.1 percent, tying its previous low for the downturn. While the unemployment rate edged down to 9.1 percent, this was entirely attributable to people leaving the labor force.

Obama is very cleverly pivoting speechifying on creating jobs for returning veterans -- not only  because the images of their homeless numbers starving under bridges evoke our national outrage, but also because the planned drawdown of troops from Afghanistan will only lead to even more homeless vets and more bad numbers unless he acts. Besides, if we were even thinking about complaining he is doing nada for civilians, he can thus accuse us of being ideological purists who do not Support The Troops!

Of course, in keeping with his Hooveresque stance that the government itself can do nothing to create jobs, his pivotal plan will involve giving businesses those all-important tax breaks for hiring vets.  So if you were dreaming of a new WPA or CCC or any shovel-ready infrastructure projects instead, then you were smoking something.

Also, the president doesn't want to have to look out the window and see this:



Bonus Army 1932.... Hooverville Central

 Or this:



Homeless Man Arrested After Jumping White House Fence

 Actually, Obama possibly did see this.  James Crudup, 41, made it all the way to the presidential front yard Tuesday night before being nabbed by the ever-ready Secret Service.  The White House was immediately put on lock-down.  Obama was uninjured. I can't say the same for the millions of unemployed or underemployed people wondering how they're going to pay the bills this month. 

* Update: Marie Burns of RealityChex.com via Paul Krugman: The president didn't extend the payroll tax because the Republicans wouldn't agree to it in debt ceiling negotiations.  "This is a stunning fact that every American should know, but they don't. Because Democrats -- including the DINO president -- won't tell them," writes Burns.

Watch "Fault Lines": A New Film on Income Disparity and Social Unrest

In the vein of "Inside Job" and "Capitalism: A Love Story" comes a brand new documentary on the class war of the rich versus the rest of us.... from Al Jazeera. Here's the link. 

The film, about half an hour long, features footage from the recent Wall Street demonstrations which have not been covered by the mainstream media. There are lots of New York City street scenes juxtaposing the angry mob with the wealthy elites.  There is warning of the social unrest to come, from economists and political scientists.  There are some  "gotcha" interviews with rich people inadvertently gushing about how they are only in it for.... themselves and other rich people!  It's Ayn Randism gone wild.

In Washington DC, a female Al Jazeera reporter is shown chasing after Mediscare kingpin Paul Ryan, who desperately hurls himself into a car and slams the door in her face.  His operatives chide her for being "rude."  These politicians are definitely not used to being treated with anything less than the fawning deference of our homegrown stenographers of the corporate media. Can you imagine Mrs. Alan Greenspan (Andrea Mitchell) stalking Paul Ryan to demand answers on the class war?  Me either.  Plus, the reporter is Arab. Holy Xenophobia, Batman!

The most infuriating part of the film, for me, comes toward the end.  The last scenes showcase graduation ceremonies at the Harvard Business School, the gateway to the world of riches for the spawn of the already fabulously wealthy.  One smarmy grad brags that his emails to top CEOs are always returned within 15 minutes.  Asked about paying higher taxes for the greater good, he replies in words to the effect "Why should I waste 10 percent of my income on entitlement programs, when that same 10 percent can be turned into a 100 percent return of even more wealth?"  The poor and the sick do not generate wealth, so they are not worth it.  Somebody finally said it.

The wealthy elites, though, have their own entitlement program, aided and abetted by the lobbyists who write the laws perpetuating callous disregard for others, with the blatant assistance of their Congressional power brokers, the Supreme Court, and the President of the United States.

But regular people are becoming royally pissed off in droves, and in the chirpy words of rich homemaking diva Martha Stewart: "That's a good thing!"

Debt Ceiling Hangover Edition

The Stock Market plunged more than 200 points despite the phony Debt Ceiling crisis being averted, proving it was a phony crisis this whole time.  It's been the recession all along, as well as projected double dip inflation, stagnation, stagflation, zero job creation and no elation.... jobless numbers expected to unexpectedly rise again this Friday when the Labor Department figures come out --  and oops, that 9.2 percent figure for June?  Likely to be revised upward..... again and again and again.

 Obama said now that Phony Debt Ceiling crisis is over, the country can start to focus on jobs.  Huh?  Congress is beating it out of town for the next five weeks. But wait! Obama's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness had a forum livestreamed from the White House website this afternoon. (I thought Joe Biden had vowed to get rid of wasteful government websites!)  Anyway, it was a bunch of CEOs lolling around on a stage commiserating about this and that and mostly about THEMSELVES.  Steve of AOL says we need a Silicon Valley States of America.  We need government to be more friendly to businesses so they can have the confidence to invest.  We need a program so all their hoarded overseas profits can be "repatriated" to evade American taxes.  There might have been talk of actual jobs instead of entrepreneurship and how the rich can get richer. I don't know.  I turned it off after 15 minutes.  It was a waste of time, and I am in austerity mode, cutting back on my government propaganda so I can save for college and win the future.


One bit of pleasantly surprising news: Kirsten Gillibrand, the junior senator from my homestate of New York, broke ranks with bank-licking Chuck Schumer and voted against the Debt Ceiling extortion bill.  From her statement:

“The fact is, there is nothing in this deal that will address the significant jobs crisis we are facing. This deal, cut behind closed doors with zero transparency, is an unbalanced approach that cuts deeply into discretionary spending while being overwhelmingly stacked in favor of large corporations who exploit loopholes and the wealthiest among us. It is simply not in the best interests of the middle class and the larger economic recovery."

Doubly surprising, given Gillibrand was the top recipient of Wall Street largesse during her campaign.  Somebody obviously read the emails and phone messages from her pissed-off constituents. (including me)  So good on Kirsten, whom I have oftimes criticized for being in the pocket of the banks.  The five other Democrats who voted against the bill in the Senate are both New Jersey senators, Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez, along with Tom Harkin of Iowa, Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Jeff Merkley of Oregon.  Names to remember come election time.

The Economy by Numbers in all their horrifying reality, are here.

And last but not least, by popular request, here is the link to Keith Olbermann's "Special Comment" call to action.  Enjoy.

An Exploding Kicked Can of Toxic Soda



Bullet Passing Through Soda Can (Andrew Davidhazy, Rochester Institute of Technology)

The "Super Committee" (a dozen Congress members to be tasked with cutting  a trillion-odd more from the budget as its Scroogean Christmas present to the nation later this year)  is more than just another kicked can of rancid cat food.  Since the last Cat Food Commission failed to agree on how to cure the deficit, the second commission will operate with some built-in triggers.  This kicked can may well explode into more crazy pieces than a fictionalized memoir by a junkie.

"Passage of a supersonic .22 caliber bullet through a soda can causes the fluid to expand outwards through the hole created by entry and exit and the bullet also drags a certain amount of fluid along with it. This photograph is a microsecond slice of time during this explosive event" according to the recent RIT lab experiment so vividly documented above.

Failure of the New Austerians to slash and burn an already deciminated social safety net even more by Thanksgiving will result in the equally vivid event of automatic cuts to Medicare providers.  But Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi sure did save the Medicare program itself, didn't they?  You will not be required to tear up your Medicare card at all!  You, personally, will not be affected.  If your doctor won't treat you for free, just blame your doctor.  And be sure to eat your peas for the roughage and Vitamin C.  If you cut yourself, don't go wimping out to the emergency room. Slap on a bandaid and then tear it off yourself, you wusses!

Economics writer Catherine Rampell has a cogent take on the "Committee" on today's New York Times.  She quotes a Brookings Institute fellow who compares the proposed body to a previous Congressional panel deciding which military bases to close:

“Expedited procedures count for a lot, and triggers count for a lot, if they can get them to work,” Professor (Sarah) Binder said. “All these delegated panels involve kicking the can down the road, but this one tries to make that can explode if gets kicked.”

The phony Debt Ceiling Armageddon and the austerity it enabled will give birth to a multitude of very real Armageddons in the near and distant future. Politicians have fixated on the deficit as the disease, rather than the symptom. They have mixed up cause and effect. Wall Street greed and government deregulation caused households to lose trillions in wealth, causing unemployment and foreclosures, causing lost revenue, causing the government deficit. Yet, as Paul Krugman explains, Washington is just like the medieval physician who bled patients to cure them, making them ever sicker. And come to think of it, the Plutocracy is even worse than a healer from the Dark Ages: it not only bleeds the patients dry, it drinks their blood.  I hope they all choke on it.

Bipartisanshipwreck, Part Two

Both parties are claiming the Nouveau Deal is just dandy.  I don't know, I haven't read the fine print. I have been, and shall remain, deeply suspicious and shocked and appalled and crushed. Both the White House and Boehner have been lightning quick to roll out their power point presentations., which were probably drafted in secret weeks ago so as not to pre-empt our State of Fear. The spin is spinning and it is only Monday morning.  What I find most intriguing is the possibility, though faint, that Nancy Pelosi may go all passive-aggressive rogue on Obama and not bother to whip her base to go along with him.  But this may be pure play-acting circa the "I will not vote against any plan without a public option" uproar of 2009.  The Progressive Caucus is to meet later this morning.  Stay tuned.

Paul Krugman, of course, is calling the plan a catastrophe:

For the deal itself, given the available information, is a disaster, and not just for President Obama and his party. It will damage an already depressed economy; it will probably make America’s long-run deficit problem worse, not better; and most important, by demonstrating that raw extortion works and carries no political cost, it will take America a long way down the road to banana-republic status.

What really bothers me the most about this plan, other than the fact it gives Republicans everything they want, and is being forced down our throats as a result of a manufactured shock doctrine of a crisis, is the "Committee" being formed to enforce deficit reductions.  If the rank and file of Congress go along, this Politburo (comprised of a dozen legislators, equally divided by party and chamber) will have until Thanksgiving to come up with more cuts.  Their decision will then be fast-tracked through the legislative process without debate.

The White House spin on the committee is that it will not be allowed to touch Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and programs for the poor, Pell Grants or burden working families and the middle class.  If the Republicans don't make cuts, an automatic trigger cutting Defense will be their punishment.  If the Democrats don't get with the program, there will be cuts to Medicare providers.  This seems like a gimmick in both instances.  Defense always has a way of getting itself funded through back channels.  CIA, anyone?  State Department and its mercenaries and security forces?  Of course, we won't cut off Medicare.  We'll just lower payments so much that providers will no longer accept Medicare patients.

Another thing to really hate is that the package not only does nothing to address a defacto 20 percent unemployment rate -- it contains absolutely no provisions to extend unemployment benefits.
Cynical, pathetic, abysmal, crapola, hellish.  All the negative words in the lexicon do not do our elected officials justice.  Even Bernie Sanders is calling for shared sacrifice, when we all should be clamoring for shared prosperity.  More later.  And please weigh in.  The comments sections of the NY Times are constipated with all the reader outrage waiting to erupt, but there's plenty of room here to vent, as well as over at RealityChex.com.