A MINORITY VIEW

BY WALTER WILLIAMS

RELEASE: WEDNESDAY, MAY 26, 2010



Minimum Wage Cruelty: Update



"Minimum Wage Cruelty" (4/14/10) was my column about the unemployment effects of Congress’ 2007 minimum wage increase on the canning industry in American Samoa, a U.S. territory in the far Pacific Ocean. The 2007 legislation mandated 50 cents annual increases in Samoan minimum wages until it reached the U.S. mainland’s hourly minimum of $7.25. In response, Chicken of the Sea International moved its operation from Samoa to a highly automated cannery plant in Lyons, Ga. That resulted in roughly 2,000 jobs lost in Samoa and a gain of 200 jobs in Georgia. Prior to minimum wage increases, Samoan wages were about $3.25 an hour. With the legislated increases, Samoa’s minimum wage is $5.25. So the question is: Which is preferable for the Samoan worker -- being employed at $3.25 an hour or being unemployed at $5.25? Which buys more of life’s essentials?

The Samoa News (April 10, 2010) reported that American Samoa’s Gov. Togiola Tulafono warned Congress more than once that American Samoa is "destined for very serious economic difficulties" if nothing is done to change provisions of federal law which mandate annual minimum wage increases.

On May 14th, the governor’s warnings bore distasteful fruit. StarKist, the island’s remaining cannery, announced that between 600 and 800 people will be laid off over the next six months, reducing the company’s Samoan workforce from a high of more than 3,000 in 2008 to less than 1,200 workers. StarKist CEO Don Binotto said it's difficult to compete when Samoan workers' wages are nearly 10 times those of its competitors in Thailand and other countries.

Labor unions are the major supporters of increases in the minimum wage. Even though the overwhelming majority of their members earn multiples of the minimum wage, they spend millions upon millions lobbying for minimum wage increases. They do it because higher minimum wages protect their members from competition with low-skill, low-wage workers. Most other minimum wage supporters are decent people with a concern for low-wage workers, but their actions suffer from a misguided vision of how the world operates.

If it is one’s vision that an employer must have a fixed number of workers to do a particular job, it makes sense to help workers by mandating higher wages. The same number of workers will be hired earning higher wages and the only difference is that employers will earn lower profits. Other people with the same desire to help low-wage workers will argue against minimum wage increases because they have a more realistic vision of how the world operates. They recognize that there is not a fixed number of workers necessary to get a particular job done. The employer can substitute capital for labor -- automate. If employers do hire the same number of workers with higher wages and try to shift the higher cost on to the product price, consumers can purchase substitute goods, including goods from foreign producers. Finally, employers can relocate to cheaper-wage countries. These and other responses to higher wages reduce employment.

Poor people are not poor because of low wages. For the most part, they're poor because of low productivity, and wages are connected to productivity. Congress can easily mandate higher wages, but they cannot mandate higher worker productivity or that employers hire a particular worker in the first place. The late Sen. Ted Kennedy, echoing the vision of many, said in his support of higher minimum wages, "I believe that anyone who works 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, should not live in poverty in the richest country in the world." It’s breathtakingly stupid to think of minimum wages as an anti-poverty tool. If it were, poverty in places such as Haiti, Ethiopia and Bangladesh could be instantly eliminated simply by proposing that these country’s legislators mandate a higher minimum wage. I’m wondering whether the Obama administration has proposed a $7.25 minimum wage as part of the cure to Haiti’s poverty.

Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2010 CREATORS.COM

"Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper's bell of an approaching looter."-Ayn Rand

"The power which a multiple millionaire, who may be my neighbour and perhaps my employer, has over me is very much less that which the smallest functionaire possess who wield the coercive power of the state, and on whose discretion it depends whether and how I am able to be allowed to live or work."

F. A. Hayek

Burke and Obama

By Thomas Sowell







http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | The other day I sought a respite from current events by re-reading some of the writings of 18th century British statesman Edmund Burke. But it was not nearly as big an escape as I had thought it would be.


When Burke wrote of his apprehension about "new power in new persons," I could not help think of the new powers that have been created by which a new President of the United States — a man with zero experience in business — can fire the head of General Motors and tell banks how to run their businesses.


Not only is Barack Obama new to the presidency, he is new to running any organization. One of Burke's fears was that "we may place our confidence in the virtue of those who have never been tried."


Neither eloquence nor zeal was a substitute for experience, according to Burke. He said, "eloquence may exist without a proportionate degree of wisdom." As for zeal, Burke said: "It is no excuse for presumptuous ignorance that it is directed by insolent passion."

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The Obama administration's going back and forth on the question whether American intelligence agents who forced information out of captured terrorist leaders will be subjected to legal jeopardy, even though they were told at the time that what they were doing was not only legal but a service to the nation, came to mind when reading Burke's warning about the dangers of continuing to change the rules and values by which people lived.


Burke asked how we could expect a sense of honor to exist when "no man could know what would be the test of honour in a nation, continually varying the standard of its coin?"


The current drive to take from "the rich" for the benefit of others came to mind when reading Burke's warning against creating a situation where "any one description of citizens should be brought to regard any of the others as their proper prey."


He also warned that "those who attempt to level, never equalise." What they end up doing is concentrating power in their own hands— and Burke saw such new powers as dangerous, even if they were used only sparingly at first.


He said, "the true danger is, when liberty is nibbled away, for expedients and by parts." He also said: "It is by lying dormant a long time, or being at first very rarely exercised, that arbitrary power steals upon a people."


People who don't like "the rich" or "big business" or the banks may be happy that President Obama is sticking it to them. But such arbitrary powers can be turned on anybody. As Robert Burns said: "Send not to know for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee." There was a lot of wisdom in the 18th century.


The Constitution of the United States set out to limit the powers of the federal government but judges have greatly eroded those limitations over the years and the dispensing of bailout money has allowed the Obama administration to exercise powers that the Constitution never gave them.


Edmund Burke understood that, no matter what form of government you had, in the end the character of those who wielded the powers of government was crucial. He said: "Constitute government how you please, infinitely the greater part of it must depend upon the exercise of the powers which are left at large to the prudence and uprightness of ministers of state."


He also said, "of all things, we ought to be the most concerned who and what sort of men they are that hold the trust of everything that is dear to us." He feared particularly the kind of man "whose whole importance has begun with his office, and is sure to end with it"— the kind of man "who before he comes into power has no friends, or who coming into power is obliged to desert his friends." Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers and others came to mind.


The biggest challenge to America — and to the world — today is the danger of Iran with nuclear weapons. President Obama is acting as if this is something he can finesse with talks or deals. Worse yet, he may think it is something we can live with.


Burke had something to say about things like that as well: "There is no safety for honest men, but by believing all possible evil of evil men, and by acting with promptitude, decision, and steadiness on that belief." Acting — not talking.

A MINORITY VIEW

BY WALTER WILLIAMS

RELEASE: WEDNESDAY, MARCH 3, 2010



Who Poses the Greater Threat?



Bill Gates is the world's richest person, but what kind of power does he have over you? Can he force your kid to go to a school you do not want him to attend? Can he deny you the right to braid hair in your home for a living? It turns out that a local politician, who might deny us the right to earn a living and dictates which school our kid attends, has far greater power over our lives than any rich person. Rich people can gain power over us, but to do so, they must get permission from our elected representatives at the federal, state or local levels. For example, I might wish to purchase sugar from a Caribbean producer, but America's sugar lobby pays congressmen hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions to impose sugar import tariffs and quotas, forcing me and every other American to purchase their more expensive sugar.

Politicians love pitting us against the rich. All by themselves, the rich have absolutely no power over us. To rip us off, they need the might of Congress to rig the economic game. It's a slick political sleight-of-hand where politicians and their allies amongst the intellectuals, talking heads and the news media get us caught up in the politics of envy as part of their agenda for greater control over our lives.

The sugar lobby is just one example among thousands. Just ask yourself: Who were the major recipients of the billions of taxpayer bailout dollars, the so-called Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP)? The top recipients of TARP handouts included companies such as Citibank, AIG, Goldman Sachs and General Motors. Their top management are paid tens of millions dollars to run companies that were on the verge of bankruptcy, were it not for billions of dollars in taxpayer money. Politicians preach the politics of envy whilst reaching into the ordinary man's pockets, through the IRS, and handing it over to their favorite rich people and others who make large contributions to their election efforts.

The bottom line is that it is politicians first and their supporters amongst intellectuals who pose the greatest threat to liberty. Dr. Thomas Sowell amply demonstrates this in his brand-new book, "Intellectuals and Society," in which he points out that: "Scarcely a mass-murdering dictator of the twentieth century was without his intellectual supporters, not simply in his own country, but also in foreign democracies ... Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Hitler all had their admirers, defenders and apologists among the intelligentsia in Western democratic nations, despite the fact that these dictators each ended up killing people of their own country on a scale unprecedented even by despotic regimes that preceded them."

While American politicians and intellectuals have not reached the depths of tyrants such as Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Hitler, they share a common vision. Tyrants denounce free markets and voluntary exchange. They are the chief supporters of reduced private property rights, reduced rights to profits, and they are anti-competition and pro-monopoly. They are pro-control and coercion, by the state. These Americans who run Washington, and their intellectual supporters, believe they have superior wisdom and greater intelligence than the masses. They believe they have been ordained to forcibly impose that wisdom on the rest of us. Like any other tyrant, they have what they consider good reasons for restricting the freedom of others. A tyrant's primary agenda calls for the elimination or attenuation of the market. Why? Markets imply voluntary exchange and tyrants do not trust that people behaving voluntarily will do what the tyrant thinks they should do. Therefore, they seek to replace the market with economic planning and regulation, which is little more than the forcible superseding of other people's plans by the powerful elite.

We Americans have forgotten founder Thomas Paine's warning that "Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one."

Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2010 CREATORS.COM

today on "Marketplace" the analyst had to admit that the dow doing well and the high unemployment are completely compatible: "investors are doing great, and workers are doing lousy." Investors like the "efficiencies" of cutting workers.....just shows you how unwholesome the system is.

"Unwholesome"....surely you are not serious? Go ahead and visit the "wholesome" feel of Cuba, China or North Korea? Think before you speak...and think before "swallowing all the kool-aid" from Senator Sanders.

Honorable Senator Sanders,

I admire your tenacity, and the way You fight for the moral issues. You are are my role model, and when I receive your news I am anxious to konw your latest information. I am 61 years old person and I came from Italy 32 years a go, with dreams in my hart and my eyes full of hope. I left a country where socialized health care was the norm and also private clinics was for the rich people, and was ok.beacause in the systems was build-in a provision that all the people must have the best care posible, and when a case needed the intervention of a prominent doctor like my father did in the year 1999-2000 never once was denied the access to such a doctor. My father died of Tyroid cancer in March of the year 2000 in September of the same year I took her here in the United States. After all this years and a few health problems since she came here. On wednesday 21 first of this month she was taken wiht an ambulance to the hospital, and with in a few days they all most succeeded to kill her by making a mistake with her medication.Fiday the 23 third they released her in such a hurry that I was not prepared for such a sudden occasion.Now she is home and slowly recovering. If I have my saying with all the money we spend for health care what I just mention should not happened, and I may add that in the health care system and the financial systems there are people in very important key place that should not be there. I could tell where they should be,and what I like to do but it is not nice both description so refrain of saying it. For certain I am angry because on top of all this I am on the verge of loosing my home and Bank of America promising to help is going so slow that I believe that what they say is only a smoke screen. My ultimate analisys is that this country is going down and we have nobody to blame but us, and as of now I do not really care becvause I do not have much to loose.I will conclude by apologising to you Sir because my long winded story.

In good faith Heles

All Americans need to watch America - Freedom to Fascism Part 1 of 11 by Aaron Russo, he's an award winning director and this video will illuminate the HOAX and Charade of he Federal Reserve and the IRS thrust upon the American People by corrupt senators and congressmen of their time. Please watch the YouTube video. You'll be glad you did and mad as hell.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-2JDfX_68U&feat...

All Americans need to watch America - Freedomto Faschsm Part 1 of 11 by Aaron Russo, he's an award winning director and this video will illuminate the hoax of he Federal Reserve and the IRS upon the American People. Please watch the YouTube video. You'll be glad you did and mad as hell.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-2JDfX_68U&feat...

Thank you for saying what needs to be said. So many people I know who are wealthy--not millionaires by a long stretch, but definitely earning well and consistently--are completely incapable of understanding how our country's economy has shifted over a generation, from making products and things we use to making either weapons or financial "products" that benefit only one class of people--the wealthy--all the while public spending on social services, education, and other "soft" but necessary programs has been eroded. This shift has resulted not only in massive unemployment and underemployment for people in blue, pink, and low-paid white collar jobs, but also in an economy predicated on war and services for the wealthy. If you are earning well through your financial sector job or your defense department contractor job, life seems great. For the rest of us, however, it is not. Interestingly, I know several young people--in their early 20s--who chose to join the military because it was the best career option available to them. They get subsidized healthcare, low-cost loans, and the possibility of decent jobs in law enforcement after their term of service is over. A generation ago, these young people would have been able to find jobs in factories or other blue collar work (they do not have college degrees--can't afford them). Not that there's anything wrong with the military--but when the possibility of getting killed becomes a good career move relative to everything else, you know the economy is not what it used to be. Keep up the good work.

I am so glad every time I watch Bernie Sanders in action. He does speak truth to the masses and he doesn't mince words. Add to the insult that the banks got bailed out with cheap dollars, and they are in turn gouging the american public with outlandish miscellaneous fees and obscene interest rates, It is infuriating. At what point does the congress get mad? The insurance companies call their chronically ill clients "DOGS" and big business refers to young people who die in their employ "as dead peasants" which is an insult to americans. Sanders is right, the middle class is collapsing. Also, how come we are giving tax breaks to foreign entities to invest in america and they hire on "contractors"(don't have to pay benefits). And why are we letting foreign entities including governments own our utility capacity. It is really disturbing how many american assets are begin sold. Dubai Ports was wrong, turning over our nuclear power plants to foreign governments leaves this nation vulnerable.

This all began during Reagan's term as President, when we started closing down our factories in favor of overseas manufacturing, and when "paper into money" became the rallying cry of a Wall Street hierarchy that increasingly functioned without adult supervision. As long as money was flowing into politicians' coffers, they willfully avoided concerning themselves with where it was coming from.

We should have known where this was leading when, starting around 1980, "junk bonds" became prime coin of the realm for investment houses. When used to finance hostile takeovers of good companies, those bonds spawned more bonds, the taken-over companies were sold off for the value of their assets, and soon the whole country was turning into, yes, a lot of financial junk, which has continued to pay off the bankers (investment or commercial, now the same thing) beyond their wildest dreams of avarice.

For a nice demonstration of that trend, consider how many supposedly smart and well-connected people turned their money over to Bernie Madoff while pretending to think his scheme was all on the up and up.

It's funny, so many of the Republican's consider Ronald Regan the most successful president of the last century. They don't see the structure he actually helped to create: De-regulation and the stripping of social agencies were the soup-du-jour under his reign. Success is not just a matter of Dollars that one can quickly make today for a day (junk bonds anyone?), and profit only the few who manipulate the system. A country's success is more a matter of sustainable and fair business practices that aren't built on a house-of-cards or ponzi scheme models.

I feel what needs to happen going forward, is to not to bailout failing business paradigms, like the current bailout babies who are upsetting the balance of survival of the fittest. Now it's survival of the weakest and most toxic. New laws need to be created with banking methods transparent and a system of checks and balances needs to be in place for the banking and finance industries. I also agree (from Dylan Ratigan's articles on Huff Po) we need to create a "Claw Back" amendment that can take back what's been looted from our taxable coffers. That money is ours, not Bush's or Obama's or Congress' to throw around willy-nilly and without payback. That money was a loan, and to not demand an accounting for it is criminal.

The rich and powerful have fully implemented the Golden Rule; i.e., he who has the gold makes the rules. I have just learned that our United States current situation of unequal economic opportunity (whereby our middle class has finally been reduced to total apparent ineffectiveness) is no different than the rest of our real world. Bush Sr's referral to Middle America/working class Americans as the "Tyranny of the Masses" in 1991 or 1992 accurately predicted the eradication of our middle class that we experience today not only in America, but around the world. In 1999 a United Nations Development Program study showed that the world's two hundred richest people had a combined wealth of over $1 trillion, equal to the combined annual income of 41 percent of the world's people (2.5 billion)....the globe's three richest people had assets that exceeded the combined GNP of all of the least developed countries put together. Global inequality has only increased. In the year 2001 85% of the world's population earned 20% of gross world income, and 15% of the rich nations' people made 80% of the gross world income, and the top 1% of the world had the same combined income as the bottom 57%. I see only one possible solution to our own national problem and that is to completely do away with all lobbying in Washington DC because our current situation is government of the people by the lobbyists for the rich and powerful. I respectfully submit that nothing will change until we rid ourselves of the current system whereby the powerful few control our elected representatives in Washington DC.

Our recent paradigm for candidates running for office has increasingly become a club for only the wealthy or powerfully connected (to industry, hello Bushes/oil and Cheney/Halliburto and Rice oil) to entertain. However, due to the wonderful advancements in internet technologies and how they're used, we potentially can have better candidates running for office. Hope future Bernie Sanders, Al Franken's, Alan Grayson's and and men and women of their ilk can get elected and help America become strong and beautiful again. Affordable advertising is now possible if run from the internet! No longer are outrageously expensive TV commercial and direct mailout campaigns the best routes to get campaign messages heard by only the well connected or wealthy candidates! My hope is that the internet can help even the playing field in the dissemination of information and campaigning so we can, like you mentioned, "rid ourselves of the current system whereby the powerful few control our elected representatives in Washington DC."

The Golden Rule has been changed since I was little - so thanks for updating me on its new meaning. If you run for congress or the senate, please tout your "doing away with all lobbying in Washington DC." I'm in total agreement on that issue and I'd vote for you. Lobbyists are a big part of the problem; the other part of the problem is Senators and Congress people who buy into their web of deception that they must follow the money trail left by lobbyists and their respective industries so re-election coffers get refilled appropriately. Greed is not good, it only supports the few pirates at the top. who hoard their ill-gotten treasures. Sustainable businesses (ie no bailout failed business models), sustainable clean technology and making the weakest links in our education, economy & environments (social and environmental) strong again should be the wave of the future. When the weakest among is is strong, the top is even stronger. Too bad those currently at the top think the reverse: that the top being the strong will benefit the crumbling bottom. A pyramid has to have a strong base, but under our current US business model, there is no base anymore, it's eroding into the wind as we speak. When the pyramid eventually crumbles, the top spike will take a nose-dive too. Boy will those "leaders" be surprised then.

I pray for the opposite, however. That good will overcome evil, that right will overcome wrong and that great people will get elected that can buck the system to make equitable progress that benefits more of the people, not the already those at the very top. Amen.

absolute fact. if we do not get the multi-national corp. structure out of our legislative process we as a nation are doomed. unfettered and unregulated capitalism simply cannot survive for an extended time period.

Senator Sanders,

I love your website and the BraveNew Studios commentary on The Dow and the Down & Out. Thank you for illustrating what All Americans need to admit & address. I don't know why the party of the fabulously rich thinks that as long and the rich and powerful are doing well, America is doing well. How narrow-minded and wrong they are. I've heard from Repugnant Republicans that the wealthy are the ones who buy things (as if they're the only ones entitled to buy things) and keep the economy going. Additionally, at the Chicago Hyatt in '91 or '92, during the presidential debate between Bush Sr. and Bill Clinton, I heard Bush Sr. give a speech at a Republican fund-raising event in which he referred to Middle America/working class Americans as the "Tyranny of the Masses." That's still how the Republican party treats middle America - as many of us know, the Republican Party serves big business interests at our expense. The Republican's Party's actions continue to speak what Bush Sr. had the gall to state. Yet, we-the-middle-class are the backbone of America. Without us, there's only a mess of condescending, elitist power and money hungry adipose tissue of American's left. The middle class is quickly disappearing. Hope all Americans care enough about America to address its disappearing backbone of Middle Americans. Right now Middle Americans have osteoporosis - that our Congress and the Senate, Wall Street and the banking system has given us. We are collapsing and who cares enough to make a difference? As corporate investing, corporate profits and greed continue to take precedence in America, the fleecing of America will continue to kill itself. Congress is also to blame for the egregious bailout debacle currently thrust upon taxpayers. I object! "The government's job is to restore the rules of investment, not indulge those who want to unfairly sustain their wealth and power at our nation's expense," from Dylan Ratigan's "Turn Goldman anger into government action."

The Great Depression occurred when this gap existed which seems to make our position more precarious today considering problems we face with global warming and energy dependence.

The gap between the rich and poor is as wide today as it was before the Great Depression. We have corporate legislators who do not seem to care that the bounty of the free market is continually concentrated among fewer and fewer. The market is a great place and has improved our standard of living. What we have today is not free market. Powerful economic forces (corporations) have created market monopolies that masquerade as free markets. Because they are the only games in town the consumer has no choice other than to buy their products.

Think I'm wrong, can you buy a car that doesn't need gas? Can we heat our homes without using some sort of fossil fuel? Can you buy health insurance from a corporation that isn't one of the top 10 firms? How many national banks can you name? Do you know who is responsible for your food supply? How about the pharmaceutical products? Who are the companies that manufacture the clothes on your back?

We have allowed corporations to become the masters of the people rather than it's servants. Sure, they create jobs (used to) but where would they be without the worker and the consumer? The market has become a one way street and in the process we have dehumanized the person. Senator Sanders is right. This is not what America was meant to be and if takes what you would refer to as Socialism to counteract the effects of Capitalism in order to restore order and Democracy to America then I am all for it.

Go Bernie.

Cooldaddy, I disagree with your thinking that Socialism would be preferable to the effects of Capitalism in order to restore order and Democracy to America.

What would be more agreeable is for all Americans to get their heads out of the soil like fearful ostriches, and get up and going regarding contacting their local Democratic party, getting involved and writing their senators and congress people regarding major issues, like the corporate bailout debacle and corporate greed supporting senators and congress people. This mess didn't occur out of the blue, it occurred because of corporate greed and lack of checks and balances.

When Americans decide that corporate outsourcing of our major industries to increase their bottom lines and golden parachutes at the expense of Middle America is wrong, then we'll just get more of the same decline and the eventual imploding of America. We will be soon known as Americaca. Republicans and their big-buck backers (insurance/health/finance/banking/polluting and gun-toting industries) have created an America of unconscionable greed and misconduct by protecting unfair banking and business practices so the Well-to-Do investors can become millionaires and then billionaires while the common taxpayer becomes destitute. When big corporations outsource all major industries like farming, steel, textiles, technology, and ethics, their corporate profits are higher and Joe Blow is out of work and now broke.

Unless we become a country that can support/export new products, like solar panels and products, environmentally responsible/renewable consumable products and until we here in America buy only "Made in the USA" products, and until We the People reign in Corporate greed that's been given the green light by the Senate and Congress, we will perish. We are perishing. Complaining will do little good. Call to action is needed.

"The government's job is to restore the rules of investment, not indulge those who want to unfairly sustain their wealth and power at our nation's expense."  from Dylan Ratigan's article "Turn Goldman Anger into Government Action."

dear truthandjusticegirl

I too have recently become a fan of Dylan.

You are incorrect to assume that Americans are not engaging in government, This summer I have been to DC several times (I live quite a distance away), have been to several "Town Halls", and have written scads of letters and have received half as many form letters in return. Many people are trying to engage the democratic process and have not been received as well as they would have expected. There is a reason for the apathy of the people. Have they had the ear of government in recent years??

I am in total agreement with all you say. However, Socialism as I see it is NOT the antithesis of DEMOCRACY. Capitalism in it's purest sense and Democracy are at cross purposes with themselves. According to the Capitalists view, the profit making and influence peddling we see are encouraged and rewarded because the aim of pure Capitalism is to increase markets and profits for shareholders. Modified Capitalism, where there is some government regulation of markets is preferred by many because it supports democratic principals. I believe this system to be a tenuous one and our current economic "situation" bears this out. Legislators are bought and sold like market instruments. I believe to protect DEmocracy we need a bit of the ECONOMIC principals of socialism to distribute the market rewards of the corporation. We have already seen how this principal helped create and sustain a middle class, a middle class that in turn fuels growth in the market, and a middle class that eliminates human suffering at the fundamental level (eradicating the effects of poverty).

Wall Street has corrupted the free market because the profit developed from the sale of goods is not invested in market growth. Financial "products" have become the base of our economy because this type of free market investing supposedly created wealth. For whom?? It has failed to create jobs and now it has proven itself incapable of even sustaining itself without a bit of a bail out from the taxpayer. This distorted economic paradigm is the end result of capitalism...run amuck. Who will fix it????? The corporations that created it? Legislators who can be bought by special interests??? Or is the solution creating a system whereby it will be harder to literally extract wealth from hard working Americans and create a market climate that encourages growth within the entire market? This is indeed a fundamental question we must ask ourselves. Labeling each other as Socialist or Capitalist is not going to get us anywhere.


The issue here is one of greed. How do we ensure that the weak are not overtaken by the strong? The issue of honesty and fairness in markets. Transparency in the marketplace so people can make informed decisions about what they buy. The ability of innovative products that serve the public good to be brought to market and gain economic foothold. (Who would have been willing to invest in the internet 25 or 30 years ago??) These are fundamental issues of market governance that have been lacking in our current capital economic system.The market is not capable of taking care of things totally. The parasite is killing it's host.

Do not assume that those who heed a call to reevaluate our market paradigm are a bunch of lazy complainers. Many "progressive liberal socialist types" are engaged and take risks. Many are free thinkers who have always swam against the current. They care deeply about the welfare of others. They are not championing a call to the end of democracy or capitalism. They are trying to create a system where as Americans we can realize the ideas set forth in our Constitution and Bill of Rights. The market is a wonderful opportunity whereby a collective group can engage in trade and commerce and create wealth for each other. This wealth in turn can be used to create jobs, educate people, in short, it helps people build better lives for themselves. Our current system has become a dead end piggy bank for the most financially powerful. Financial instruments that were supposed to help distribute the wealth of the market have been manipulated to extract as much money from the market as possible. Innovation has been stymied by the market forces with the most financial clout. Companies who invest in the market run their day to day business not to serve a client base or sustain growth, but to serve market managers eager to extract every last financial drop from that market participant. This is the "Socialist" message. I have learned alot from the people who share Sen. Sanders vision. Please do not let words separate us from the ideas we both cherish.

Actually, I don't agree with your summation of my reply to your comment as I never stated, "those who heed a call to reevaluate our market paradigm are a bunch of complainers," as you inferred about my reply. I am merely trying to say, that all of us, every one of us, needs to get very involved in what's going on. Kudos to you for your involvement. I agree that many Americans are doing something other than yelling at town halls and throwing eggs at pictures, many are not.

I also agree with your stating that the market allows many to create wonderful opportunities to create wealth. Wealth is not bad in itself; it's like a gun however, powerful, cold and sometimes threatening; it's not a bad thing unless you use it badly, to hurt others (like we see now). I think those with power & wealth are currently using it badly and with purely selfish motives. However, we are only as strong as our weakest link and our weakest link is getting larger and weaker. But despite the hugely unethical bailout/banking/war debacles that are large and cancerous to America, there are also responsible entities out there doing the right thing by their employees and America, albeit their stories are far and few between. Take for instance the founder of Costco, Jim Sinegal, who limits his salary to $350,000 and divides the rest to support his worker's salaries. The average worker wage is $17/hr. and their loyalty, diligence and work ethic pays off.

In an article about Sinegal by Alan Goldberg and Bill Ritter for ABC News 20/20, the writer's mention the only critics of Sinegal's business model are Wall Street analysts. But the Costco founder's philosophy is that, "Wall street is in the business of making money between now and next Tuesday. We're in the business of building an organization, an institution that we hope will be here 50 years from now. And paying good wages and keeping your people working with you is very good business." The article ends with the authors stating, "What Sinegal has proven is that a company doesn't have to be ruthless. Being humane and ethical can also make you money."

I also agree with Sinegal's business ethics and model. However, unlike you, I don't think that you should you force business entities to adopt that model. I think one should be persuaded, as the Costco story illustrates. What does need to happen is not to bailout failing business paradigms, like the bailout babies who are upsetting the balance of survival of the fittest. Now it's survival of the weakest and most toxic. New laws need to be created with banking methods transparent and a system of checks and balances needs to be in place for the banking and finance industries. I also think we need to create a "Claw Back" amendment that can take back what's been looted from our taxable coffers. That money is ours, not Bush's or Obama's or Congress' to throw around willy-nilly and without payback. That money was a loan, and to not demand an accounting for it is criminal.

One can't force one to do the right thing by creating Socialism. We need to all put our money where our mouth is and not shop at WalMart,not bank at Bank of America, but instead shop at CostCo and bank at small credit unions and support other responsible entities like them. If the media, with great frequency, helps spread stories of good and responsible corporate leadership vs. the bailout babies and their irresponsible corporate greed, maybe the American people, our congressional legislators, teachers, CEO's and industry mavens etc., will begin to understand that divided we are falling and this mess needs rectifying and fixing.

With the rich becoming uber wealthy and the middle class becoming destitute and powerless, we are becoming weaker as a nation. Knowledge is power, and how we fix our problems depends on our actions. We the People can make that happen. Al Franken has already done a wonderful job as a very new senator and if we elect more like him, then shake and bake, we'll be doing better more quickly.

Peace Out.

Actually, peaceandjusticegirl, after i wrote my comment i reflected on my assumption towards your remarks about whining (it is amazing what a walk will do for you).

A couple of things: I am going to get a COSTCO membership.
While we cannot force businesses to adopt ethical business practices, we can use legislation and tax structures to promote business models that encourage the distribution of money to a wider portion of the economic spectrum. The attempt to do so will label one as a socialist firebrand. We need to assess that critique of those ideas.
I love Sen. Franken and have had the good fortune of meeting him. Actually attended a book signing of his when he announced his intention of running for the Senate several years back. After the gasps there was much applause. I am so glad he won.

My writing about complaining was a rally cry to myself, to inspire me to get up and get going, not towards you. All too often I can become a talking head like many others, but without action, it's just hot air. I care so I need to put that care into action, which I am slowly beginning to do. Glad you are currently doing that.

I agree also about using legislation and tax structures to promote business models that encourage the distribution of wealth, but moreso, legislation that addresses blind spots in current unethical business practices in the banking and investment industries. That's why I can't say enough about the two articles Dylan Ratigan recently wrote regarding the banking and bailout debacles. (Turn Goldman anger into government action - and - Goldman Sachs' Black Magic, Here's How They Did It) Those articles are on Huff Po (www.huffingtonpost.com/dylan-ratigan/goldman-sa...)

We do need to Claw Back our money too. Don't you agree? If so, please spread the word. Wish we could clone Senators Franken and Sanders.

In response to Bill K.
"...no better than BHO" and "...empty on solutions." What I appreciate about Bernie Sanders, Michael Moore, and others like them is the pointed and accurate critique they give to U.S. politics today. I also like the Socialist Party's generalized stated agenda for ending discrimination and equalizing wealth in our country. And I'm getting this directly from your quote below Bill K:

"We are socialists because we share a vision of a humane international social order based both on democratic planning and market mechanisms to achieve equitable distribution of resources, meaningful work, a healthy environment, sustainable growth, gender and racial equality, and non-oppressive relationships."

What exactly is wrong with that? It sounds pretty American to me. Socialism and Communism are both democratic movements until perverted by corrupt governments. Surely we all know, from our own history, that corruption is possible within our own representative democracy. I can respect conservatives who are against big government because they believe government, of any type, is inherently corruptible. I agree with that. But to be against equality, such as the form of equality stated above, is to be anti-democratic, anti-american.

I'm tired of conservatives hijacking the moral high-ground, through character assassination. Get it straight Bill K. If you want solutions, then propose them yourself and support them, rather than attacking those who are calling out your very oppressors. If Bernie Sanders is empty on solutions, then you are empty on sound argument.

Bernnie Sanders is the founder of this socialist (communist) movement. His latest video he whales against Wall Street but is empty on solutions. He also suppresses freedom of speech as I have been blocked by pointing out his political agenda on his channel blog on You-tube.

DO NOT BE FOOLED FOLKS! He is no better than BHO he is a wolf in sheeps clothing.
Here is proof-I got this off a gentleman I met on twitter.

The Congressional Progressive Caucus
September 6, 2009 • Leave a Comment
The information below was provided as a comment by a reader (a12iggymom). I have verified the information and decide to move it to the front page to be sure everyone saw this.
From a12iggymom:
I found this during the campaign but no one gave a darn, now everyone is waking up!
Some background on the Progressive Party always praised by the democrats, “The Progressive Caucus is an organization of Members of Congress founded in 1991 by newly-elected House Representative Bernie Sanders (Independent-Vermont), who is a self-described socialist.”
As of June 2006, the following Members of Congress belonged to the Progressive Caucus: Neil Abercrombie; Tammy Baldwin; Xavier Becerra; Madeleine Z. Bordallo; Corrine Brown; Sherrod Brown; Michael Capuano; Julia Carson; Donna Christensen; William “Lacy” Clay; Emanuel Cleaver; John Conyers; Elijah Cummings; Danny Davis; Peter DeFazio; Rosa DeLauro; Lane Evans; Sam Farr; Chaka Fattah; Bob Filner; Barney Frank; Raul Grijalva; Luis Gutierrez; Maurice Hinchey; Jesse Jackson, Jr.; Sheila Jackson-Lee; Stephanie Tubbs Jones; Marcy Kaptur; Carolyn Kilpatrick; Dennis Kucinich; Tom Lantos; Barbara Lee; John Lewis; Ed Markey; Jim McDermott; James P. McGovern; Cynthia McKinney; George Miller; Gwen Moore; Jerrold Nadler; Eleanor Holmes Norton; John Olver; Major Owens; Ed Pastor; Donald Payne; Nancy Pelosi; Charles Rangel; Bobby Rush; Bernie Sanders; Jan Schakowsky; Jose Serrano; Louise Slaughter; Hilda Solis; Pete Stark; Bennie Thompson; John Tierney; Tom Udall; Nydia Velazquez; Maxine Waters; Diane Watson; Mel Watt; Henry Waxman; and Lynn Woolsey.
Until 1999 the Progressive Caucus worked in open partnership with Democratic Socialists of America. After the press reported on this link, the connections suddenly vanished from both organizations’ websites.
Excerpts from the website of the Democratic Socialists of America:

The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is the largest socialist organization in the United States, and the principal U.S. affiliate of the Socialist International. DSA’s members are building progressive movements for social change while establishing an openly socialist presence in American communities and politics.
We are socialists because we reject an international economic order sustained by private profit, alienated labor, race and gender discrimination, environmental destruction, and brutality and violence in defense of the status quo.
We are socialists because we share a vision of a humane international social order based both on democratic planning and market mechanisms to achieve equitable distribution of resources, meaningful work, a healthy environment, sustainable growth, gender and racial equality, and non-oppressive relationships.
DSA has a youth section, Young Democratic Socialists (YDS). Made up of students from colleges and high schools and young people in the work force, the Youth Section works on economic justice and democracy and prison justice projects. It is a member of the Interantional Union of Socialist Youth, an affiliate of the Socialist International. The Youth Section meets several times during the year. More information is available from YDS staff.

Also on their site you will find a variety of reources in the form of PDFs. Most of these are in support of all the administrations major agenda items; Health Care Reform, Green Jobs, Climate Change Regulations and Card Check to name a few. However there is one that really stands out called “How a President Creates Change” by Joesph Schwartz. Below is the opening of this article:
The impressive depth and breadth of your electoral victory, combined with Democratic gains in both the House and the Senate, provides the possibility of reversing three decades of growing inequality that is the primary cause of an impending depression. To put it simply, the world now produces more than it can consume; we now are paying the price for using excessive debt to make up for the declining purchasing power of the global working class. But to do avoid a global depression you will have to act boldly and quickly. As a constitutional law scholar, you realize that the system of checks and balances and separation of powers established by our founders consciously aimed to forestall rapid change. Thus, almost all the reforms we identify with the twentieth-century Democratic Party—Social Security, the National Labor Relations Act, the Civil Rights Acts, and Medicare—occurred in the periods 1935-1938 and 1964-1966, the only times when the Democrats controlled the presidency and had strong majorities in both chambers of Congress. If upon taking office you lead with boldness, your administration could pass major legislation in regard to universal health care, massive investment in green technology, and labor law reform that would transform United States social relations for generations to come. But as a former community organizer you know that such reforms did not come from the top down; they arose because moderate elites made concessions to the movements of the unemployed and the CIO in the 1930s and to the Civil Rights, anti-war, women’s, and welfare rights movements of the 1960s. While your office cannot conjure up mass social movements, you can call your supporters to ongoing grassroots activism.

I will continue to research this area but if you have any doubts that their is a socialist movement hard at work inside this administration, think again! Remember, Carol Browner was an active member of Socialist International before becoming the Energy Czar. Also recognize there are direct references to themes that are constantly part of the stories I report to you. Things such as using the community organing approach, moving swiftly to force change, even reminding the president that the founding fathers had intentionally designed the Constitution to separate powers and provide checks and balances to control the speed of change.

I must be a socialist!

Wow! Thanks for pointing this out. I had no idea this was a socialist movement. But now that I've read through the information it sounds very rational. I notice that you didn't even try to refute anything Bernie has been saying, so I assume you agree with him?
I've never thought of myself as a socialist, but this really sounds like the direction we should be going.
Thanks again!

The NEAR POOR is an apt description of huge numbers of Americans, who formerly belonged to the Great Middle Class. Even before the economy tanked our"real" wages were at 1973 levels, while we were hit with increased prices and taxes. Barbara Ehrenreich has exposed the system that has "nickled and dimed" ordinary Americans. It's yet another sneaky way of making everyone's lives miserable.
One thing I don't understand: don't the super rich KNOW that their refusal to uphold the need for a strong middle class is important for their welfare, too? A strong middle class is the basis of a STABLE society, along with programs to aid the poor in their pursuit of success. Do they REALLY want to live in a society which becomes more and more volatile?

P.J. O'Rourke was on Bill Maher a couple months back and stated just because he keeps getting rich, doesn't mean the poor are getting poorer. It's that type of attitude the rich manifest amongst themselves. It is their complete lack of empathy as well as their insatiable appetite for wealth at any cost that is driving a greater divide, thus creating the ultimate class struggle.

Now we're left with watching Lloyd Blankfein (CEO of Goldman Sachs) state publicly how great his company is doing and how committed they are to projecting a positive public image. Then again Tim Geitner is quietly holding his hand. The rich know what is happening, they just don't care.