Corporate Socialism

If you thought I was off my soapbox, well, I was for a while. Here's some information I've read in a book recently:

"...corporate socialism = the privatization of profit and socialization of risks and misconduct - is displacing the capitalist canons. This worsening condition prevents an adaptable capitalism, served by equal justice under law, from delivering higher standards of living. Civic and political movements must call for a decent separation of corporation and state. Otherwise invasive commercial imperatives will erode the civic and spiritual values of our democratic society.

Corporate executives, as a calss, have pulled off nothing short of a coup d'etat by seizing power from shareholders - the real owners. It is remarkable how the corporate owners lost their rights to effectively control what they own. That means the ability to nominate their own board of directors and to have real elections to decide who will run the company. The staggering compensation plans for CEOs rubber stamped by a selected board of compliant directors has led to inflating profits, downloading debt, and other crokked accounting. The purpose, always, is to increase stock prices to make the bosses' stock options more valuable. All too often top executives end up jeopardizing their own campanies. "Surveying continuing record executive pay," Fortune headlined in its May 3, 2004 issue, "the average CEO in 2002 earned 282 times what the average worker did. In 1982, the ratio was 42 to one.""


So, based on this, when you do think it was written? 2009? 2008? 2007? No on all counts, it was written in 2004, by Ralph Nader. It comes from the book "The Good Fight".

What? You mean the government and our taxes were bailing out corporations then too? This has been going on for some time now, but it has accelerated and ballooned to the point of ridiculous.

Do you want to know why executives of financial companies haven't had the rough treatment that the auto makers have had? Perhaps it could be because our Vice-President, Joe Bidon, passed legislation on behalf of the credit card companies (and the financial industry as a whole) making it more difficult for people (aka voters) to file bankruptcy. Now the people have awoken from their slumber to find themselves out of a job, out of a home with financial institutions still using predatory practices on the people.

We pay while they play.

Why? First, because they know they can, until the government slaps their hand. Second, because the people, as a whole, are not organized. Yes, we have two dominant political parties, however the leaders of both parties have been taking money for years from the same people who are robbing the people blind. Awake from your slumber, folks, it's past time to roll up our sleeves and get to work. The problem is, getting the people to wake up.

Yes, there is new legislation covering the predatory practices, but Congress created enough loopholes to give credit card companies a get out of jail card. The other problem is enforcement. The federal government hasn't enforced the rules that are now on the books with regards to predatory practices, how are they going to enforce the new laws?

Here are a few words from Ralph Nader:

Chrysler Bankruptcy and Credit Card Legislation