Corporations and the Administration

The Wall Street protest has spread to more than 1,000 countries, every continent except Antarctica. On October 6, 2011, Professor Bill Black of the University of Missouri – Kansas City School of Law said this is the worst financial crisis in history, driven by the largest epidemic of elite fraud and none of the elite are going to prison. Apparently Vice President Biden says the Wall Street protesters are like the Tea Party and Nancy Pelosi supports them. Republican Herman Cain said they are protesting the wrong people. Wall Street did not put in these failed economic policies. Cain calls the protesters jealous Americans playing the victim card and has said don’t blame Wall Street, don’t blame the big banks, if you don’t have a job and you’re not rich, blame yourself. Other people are dismissing the protesters as an unlawful group with no coherent message. Apparently there is a Facebook site, it’s an ad called Down with Evil Corporations, that says – Join us as we organize against corporations using social networking by corporations, smart phones by corporations serviced by wireless carriers that are corporations, wearing clothes made by corporations, capturing it all by cameras made by corporations, and getting there via cars, buses, bicycles and shoes all made by corporations. We deserve more from these greedy corporations, meet us at Starbucks after. I think this is a perfectly good message.     

Per the University of California at Berkeley, the top 1% of Americans earn on average $1.1 million a year. The bottom 90% of Americans (one million households) average $31,000 per year. And, per the US Census Bureau, since the end of the recession the top 1%’s income went up 0.44% while 99% of the population’s income decreased 0.45%. It was also reported that from 1980 – 2008 the 1%’s income increased 11 times more than the rest of us. I think this is a perfectly good reason to have peaceful demonstrations that are allowed by our freedom of speech.

Cain is correct in that Wall Street did not implement the policies that allowed them to do what they did. However, they did provide the donations and lobbyists that got the previous administrations to pass the bills that allowed it all to happen and we cannot elect a political party that continues to think this is okay. Congress needs to tighten the laws that allowed big business to sabotage our economy. I want to remind Cain and others like him that everyone cannot be a CEO and that companies are no good without workers. The audacity of him thinking he’d be rich without the average person working for him or buying his products amazes me.

I heard Obama’s top economic advisor, Larry Summers who also worked for Reagan and Clinton, reportedly made over $5 million managing DE Shaw (one of the biggest hedge funds) and he was replaced by Gene Sperling (worked for Clinton) who made almost $900,000 working for Goldman Sachs. I agree that the administration is connected to Wall Street. But, it’s not just this administration; it’s been all of them and this is why I think the way campaigns are run needs to change. The difference I see is that this President, unlike others, is apparently not making exceptions for those connected to his administration or election campaign. ABC News reported on September 13^th that the President’s Plan for Recovery would: limit deductions for those making $200,000+, raise taxes on hedge fund managers, eliminate subsidies for oil and gas companies and eliminate write-offs for corporate jets.