Five Ways We're Being Violated by Big Business

This is a US centered article but imagine it might apply elsewhere though nowhere as blatantly.

I never know where to put these informational pieces but here goes.

www.commondreams.org...

1. Drug Companies: The Body Snatchers

A report by Battelle Memorial Institute determined that the $4 billion government-funded Human Genome Project (HGP) will generate economic activity of about $140 for every dollar spent. Although that estimate is controversial, drug industry executives say it's just a matter of time before the profits roll in.

2. Oil Companies: Ripping Up the Country, Ripping Off the Taxpayers

In the past year the U.S. has become a net exporter of oil, putting us in a position, according to the International Energy Agency, to be almost energy self-sufficient by 2035. Just five years ago we were spending $341 billion on crude oil imports. In 2012 we exported $117 billion worth of processed oil products.

3. Telecommunications: We're Paying Them to Spy on Us

The CIA and NSA have been using our tax money to pay AT&T and Google and other companies to access its data - our data - for surveillance purposes. With almost no transparency or oversight, the CIA has been paying AT&T to monitor our overseas phone calls. Hundreds of dollars per customer per month goes to Verizon for similar snooping. The NSA compensated Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Facebook for penalties accrued in the secretive Prism surveillance program.

4. Banks: Almost 40% of Our 401(k)s Lost in Fees

Based on the 6% historical stock market return, an individual investing $1,000 a year for 30 years in a non-fee fund and then holding the accumulated sum for another 20 years would end up with $269,000. Imposing the industry average 1.3% fee would reduce the final total to $165,000, a 39% reduction.

In other words, almost $2 of every $5 in potential 401(k) earnings is lost because of bank fees.

5. Banks II: Revenue Here, Profits Overseas

Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan once lamented that nobody understood "how much good" his employees do. But his company, despite making a whopping 82% of its 2011-12 revenue in the U.S., declared a $10 billion profit in foreign countries -- and $7 billion in U.S. losses.

Citigroup isn't much better. The company had 42% of its 2011-12 revenue in North America (almost all U.S.) but declared a $28 billion profit in foreign countries, and a $5 billion U.S. loss.

Free Enterprise = Private Profit at Public Expense

Congress' response to all this? They would like SNAP and Social Security recipients to go find a job. Even though all the industries above, with the exception of oil and gas, have been among the leaders in cutting jobs.

Happy Hoidays

We need to retooth our anti-trust laws and start tackling and breaking up some of these major corporations holding death grips on our economy. Then we need to get rid of the tax loopholes allowing corporations to funnel all their money overseas and add some tax incentives for bringing the money back onshore.

reply to post by Krazysh0t


That would be an excellent start.

I'd also like to see us go back to the original rules on incorporating wherein corporations could only be chartered for a maximum of 40 years. I can't recall the act or the State that that allowed them an indefinite life time so they could be used to amass multi-generational wealth and power. I believe New Jersey was the first. I'll look it up when I get home later.

reply to post by FyreByrd


I think the whole view in the US is eschew now-a-days. This information confirms that. And it's not anti-business or anti-free market to point that out. The economy is there to serve the people. Everybody: big business, little business, Joe Public alike. It has laws which need a specific climate to flourish. The government helps to protect that climate from the sidelines, not providing muscle at the center of the strum.

When the economy is hijacked to serve an elite few to the detriment of all others, it is no longer an economy but a racket. A greedy bunch of near sighted sociopaths unplugged the healthy flow within the economy, are letting it die, all in order to drain the system of the wealth currently flowing, with the enabling and exuberance of the get away drivers in DC. Plunder seems a good word.

ABNARTY
When the economy is hijacked to serve an elite few to the detriment of all others, it is no longer an economy but a racket. A greedy bunch of near sighted sociopaths unplugged the healthy flow within the economy, are letting it die, all in order to drain the system of the wealth currently flowing, with the enabling and exuberance of the get away drivers in DC. Plunder seems a good word.

Truer words were never spoken.

It's gone too far to correct now. The system will crash and then we damn well better remove the criminal trash and their corporate/bankster buddies that engineered it.

The supreme court ruled corporations are like people so they can give all they want to political parties and races, yet they are still allowed to drug test us, do back ground checks, credit checks. Why do we give them so much control over us?

Why do they have more rights than us?

reply to post by juspassinthru


You have a good point about it all probably being too far gone to resuscitate. If we extend our analogy, the patient may be brain dead already. Pull out the life support and it all stops. But...so die the parasites.

The good news is regular people know pretty much in their DNA the value of things they need and can very quickly adapt to trade/barter/new currency/etc. Dishonest middle men need not apply. I do not believe the country will collapse to the stone age if the economy does. 1800's tops. It will most definitely look and act different. Our ancestors knew how to make it all happen sans fire sale finance. Us being here is proof of that.

reply to post by FyreByrd


Five 'ways' we are being violated by the monopolistic capitalists married to the bastardized Marxists?

1. in the rear
2. in the arse
3. in the bumm
4. in the a**
5. in the anal orifice

as though they were trying to give us a tonsillectomy with the instruments inserted via our rear.

THEY sure seem to get their jollies from the procedure.

Those are NOT my seDiments, however.

LDragonFire
The supreme court ruled corporations are like people so they can give all they want to political parties and races, yet they are still allowed to drug test us, do back ground checks, credit checks. Why do we give them so much control over us?

Why do they have more rights than us?

edit on 2-12-2013 by LDragonFire because: (no reason given)

edit on 2-12-2013 by LDragonFire because: (no reason given)

A very good question LDragonFire. And why don't we get the protections and privledges of Corporate Persons either?

I'm in favor of a Corporate Death Penalty for crimes against Human People.