Holiday for the People

In this season of peace on earth and good will towards men, how about some forgiveness, like mortgage reductions for citizens? The banks were forgiven with no questions asked, yet citizens who paid to forgive receive no such mortgage debt forgiveness themselves.

Neither the banks nor the Obama administration are willing to reduce underwater mortgages as a solution to the housing crisis. “The government has been sheltering banks from facing the hard truth about their condition. They may be valuing mortgages or mortgage bonds at say, 85 cents on the dollar, when the true market value, industry experts say, is closer to 25 or 30 cents. …if many of the loans aren’t ever going to be repaid, then the assets now claimed by the bank are imaginary.”

Real people aren’t having imaginary difficulties being underwater. Modification of mortgages along with interest reduction would greatly boost the economy.

As housing prices continue to decrease, it increases the number of mortgages under water. This flood of bad debt has to be reduced or the economy will not recover.

The current financial system is such a wicked web of deceit and moral degeneration that modifying mortgages would mean “The banks would have to report reduced capital…” and “This could threaten the solvency of some of the very large banks-those that have exaggerated their financial condition, as many market analysts and shareholders suspect.”

Let’s have a bank holiday in this holiday season. As former banker Rob Johnson said, “These institutions are so intertwined they are a system. You can’t deal with one bank alone; you have to deal with the system. You call a month long bank holiday for the twenty largest banks, and that holds everything in place while the regulators mark down the assets and see how everybody’s losses will affect everyone else.

“Then you wipe out stockholders, wipe out management, possibly some of the unsecured debt. Mortgages would be refinanced based on real value. Once everybody has taken their hit and you’ve wiped out existing stockholders, then the government comes in and properly, transparently recapitalizes all of them. As these new institutions gain a footing, eventually they can be sold back to the private market.” “This is rough stuff, but the nation could get a fresh start and a new, more honest banking system out of the hard knocks.”

The people cannot be the victims three times here; once by the banks betting against itself with our houses and savings at risk; second by the government bailing out the banks with our tax dollars “no questions asked,” and now the third hit by the banks who are responsible for the whole mess to begin with, refusing to adjust the house value which they manipulated to be over priced in the first place.

Let’s face it, if America wants to be considered the ‘best’ country in the world, the country that all others strive to emulate, then it should start by being honest and truthful with it’s constituents. Otherwise, we become just like the other failed countries where its politicians and bankers have sucked the life out of it’s population, some of the very countries where we’ve sent our military might to depose those in power, to change it to where the government serves the people. The bankers and their politician minions at their beck and call have no reason to believe that it can’t happen here as well.

Note-All quotes are from the article in The Nation magazine-”Debt Jubilee, American Style” by William Greider.

Is the Messenger Transparent?

Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson doesn’t want to enforce the Consumer Financial Protection Board due to concerns over the agency’s transparency and the dictatorial power of the agency’s director, stating, “we are so worried about the overkill in this. We have prudential regulators in the banking and lending industries now. That has been cleaned up. We have the comptroller. We have the Fed. We have the FDIC. Another layer of bureaucracy is going to cost consumers more, and it's not going to be more protective.”

Bloomberg News reporter Bob Ivry who wrote the story on the Fed’s lending trillions to banks said,-“What we're really taking a look at is what happened afterwards and the secrecy that surrounded the loans that they made during this time. They kept that -- they kept the details of the lending from the folks at Treasury who put together TARP. And they -- and nobody that we spoke with, the senators or congressmembers, knew anything about the details of the Fed lending when they were debating and ultimately passed the Dodd-Frank legislation.”

The Federal Reserve was operating in secrecy and with no oversight but now the Senator and her colleagues are worried about the CFPB. The Bloomberg new report also found “ that banks had potentially profited from the emergency lending programs by some $13 billion dollars and the Fed had spared them a measure of scrutiny that might have led to stricter reforms on the industry.”

Even if this legislation is tepid, Senator Hutchinson is sending the message only consumer protection agencies need scrutiny and reforms, but it’s OK for the central bank and all the other banks to operate in secrecy with no oversight.

Always blaming the people

The Founding Fathers believed a central bank was needed as a means of paying debts and to provide lending for economic growth. Machiavelli said man cannot resist that to which nature inclines. And yet, we commoners; the ’unclean masses’ are supposed to curtail our instincts and cut back on the necessities of life, while the fraudulent bankers who caused this rape of the economy are blameless. After all they’re in the business of making a profit, so who could blame them? Edmund Burke said “I do not know the method of drawing up an indictment against a whole people”.

Now the indictment is against whole peoples of the world because they retire too early, they charged too much on their credit cards or they bought houses they couldn’t afford. There’s too much debt and only austerity cuts can rescue the world.

But why is there an explosion of world wide debt? William Greider writes in the Nation magazine: “The austerity class ignored the massive housing and credit bubble, which more than any single factor contributed to the explosion of debt worldwide.”

Bank mathematicians and engineers and lawyers were the ones getting “creative” with the housing debt and turning home loans into mind boggling equations, which is what got us into this mess. But the solutions are easy, just blame the masses, cut workers and their pensions, while we bail out the crooks, cut their taxes, and guarantee them their fraudulent profit with our tax dollars. That’ll solve the debt crisis.

Clash of the Classes

“All men are created equal” Jefferson had written. Adams understood that this applied to rights, not social station. He believed that, even though the United States would lack a titled aristocracy, it would hardly exist as a classless society. His thoughts on government were aimed at accommodating, equitably but practically, the reality of social classes. Adams sought to do this largely by ensuring that the American Republic would be governed by laws, not men. Laws were incorruptible, whereas people were not. “For him the law was about religion. It was about morality, justice, reward and punishment. It was a vision of order in the universe”.

Disruption in the rule of law has brought disorder and distorted visions; ruling classes are no longer subject to punishment and workers are no longer recipients of reward. In light of this, the banksters have not paid the price for their recent reckless ruination of our economy, including the mainstay of the working class, their house, or the housing market, while the lower classes pay the price by working harder and making less.

Consideration of classes has been blinded by the concentration of wealth at the top. There will always be greater and lesser, but when the one class grows larger at the expense of another, that’s neither just nor equitable.

Adams advocated for a government representing all classes of people; today the Supreme Court creates repressive classes by re-defining personhood and the rights of wealth. Corporations live forever, people do not. This ruling does not take social classes into account.

“The mere fact of creating a republic--dispensing with hereditary rulers--did not level the social classes. A two chambered legislature took social reality into account and dealt with it as equitably as possible.” The Senate represented the wealthy and the House represented the rest of the classes.

Both houses of representation have skewed the laws to favor billionaires, taxed at 15% while the workers are taxed over 30%. These laws are not equitable nor do they deal with social reality.

Governing by the use of incorruptible laws has morphed into governing by corruptible people who dispense with any accounting of social classes or their representative obligations to them. Adams wrote that “power must be opposed to power and interest to interest”.

The ruling class has created a government of powerful interests without equal opposition. It’s a dangerous universe when the law is no longer king. Precisely why millions of Americans are losing their homes and the world drowns in debt all because our elected officials have sold us out. The ruling classes have bought our representatives in congress, and now they don’t have to obey the laws of justice and morality as they were originally intended to protect us.

Note-The quotes on John Adams are from the book “Revolutionary Management" by Alan Axelrod Ph.D.

Plundering Pensions

Countries around the world including the US have jumped on the band wagon to reduce the pensions of the workers. Rhode Island is backing away from their pension obligations, and the state of Massachusetts had their credit rating increased (by bank owned agencies) because of pension reforms.

Pensions for workers is not what caused the financial crisis, it was investing in Wall Street synthetic derivatives which had no real value behind them.

Now that these junk bonds are worthless and there’s no money for pensions, let‘s just blame the people, it’s easier than holding the banks accountable for fraud.

Nomi Prins states in her book ‘It Takes a Pillage’ a former Goldman Sachs employee went to work in the Italian government and encouraged them to deregulate banks similar to the deregulation on banking in this country. A few years later their economy is drained, and presto, they’re cutting back on pensions.

It just seems uncanny that the countries who invested in the Wall Street sub prime roulette now have to cut the pensions of the workers.

The banking crisis was one of the biggest transferences of wealth this country has ever seen, All made possible by bad bets sold on imaginary wealth and then bet against by the very banks that sold them, with all of us real people ultimately paying the price for their fraud.

Rather than advancing the theory that workers don’t deserve a comfortable retirement free from the poverty of old age, they should look into what happened when Wall Street banks played ‘bait and switch’ on pension plans.

But that’ll never happen, banks and the 1% have more power than this president. No wonder the workers are under attack.

Jobs Creators strike against America

According to John Boehner, the “jobs creators” are on strike.

If the Speaker is so concerned, why doesn’t he pressure the president to break this strike like previous presidents? Harry Truman broke the railroad strike, and Governors called on the National Guard to shoot the strikers. Ronald Reagan broke the air traffic controllers strike. why can’t the government break this strike?

And just what are these “jobs creators” striking against? Unfair taxes and burdensome regulations?

Twenty nine Americans were killed in the 2010 West Virginia coal mine due to lack of regulatory enforcement concerning the safety of miners. How many Americans have died from food poisoning? Remember the poisoned eggs?

These companies pay no heed to regulations as it is, Massey Energy Co. and DeCoster egg farm had been cited hundreds of times with little to no corrections. Now people are dead due to their negligence and they’ve gotten away with it. So how have regulations hindered any of these “jobs creators”?

Are the jobs creators on strike when it comes to outsourcing jobs around the world? Chrysler just negotiated new contracts where they’ll pay the American worker the same pay as foreign auto workers. Now if we can just get the cost of living down to that of foreign workers, we might have a chance to be competitive. Oh yeah that’s right, due to all the taxes and regulations, mega corporations have to lower our wages to be competitive with other countries, where the cost of living isn’t as grossly inflated.

George Washington lamented about convincing the whisky makers to pay taxes, without them, the financial future of a federal government was in peril. Paying taxes for federal government is nothing new, why are the “jobs creators” so aggrieved now?

This strike won’t end until government is privatized with all services outsourced to the same corporations who sicken and kill us.

Where are the strike breakers when we need them?

Occupy for a Tea Party

The Tea Party and the Occupy Movement both feel it was wrong to bail out the banks and not Main Street, but that’s where the similarity ends. The Tea Party is against the TARP bailout and mistakenly insists it was passed during the Obama administration. Never mind that it was passed during the last administration while former Goldman Sachs CEO Hank Paulson was the Treasury Secretary, and that’s a large part of the problem, Goldman Sachs is in control of the Treasury, hence the bail for banks only and not the citizens.

The Tea Party complains about the bail out as too much government interference while the Occupy movement complains about the banksters the bail out helped the most.

The current financial banking disaster goes all the way back to the seventies when the rules for commercial banks were deregulated. Commercial banks could only invest in mortgages but were deregulated by pressure from the banks, so that they could invest in anything. The numerous board members were replaced by one bank president. This led to thousands of small bank failures, which then allowed bigger banks to buy up these failed savings and loans banks. This is what led to “banks too big to fail“.

After they created this housing bubble, and when it became clear to these robber barons that it was only a matter of time before this housing bubble burst, the banks bet against the hand they were holding, knowing in advance it was a losing hand. That’s a set up, pure and simple.

The original Tea Party wasn’t only against taxation without representation, they were rebelling against corporate control as well. During colonial times, the British East India Trading company had warehouses full of tea they couldn’t sell back in England. They convinced the British government to force all American colonists to buy only East India Tea. This tyrannical act stood to put many Tea Houses and Tea merchants out of business, part of the reason the tea was thrown overboard.

So both sides can find common ground in the original Tea Party except the people just don’t know it. In reality the Tarp bail out is only a drop in a big scary bucket, the tax payer is on the hook for trillions in sub prime debt. We all should be throwing this debt and the banksters who brought it to us overboard instead of taxpayer dollars funding 400 million dollar retirements for the very people who caused the financial failure.

Shake, Rattle and Raise Fees say the Banks

The president of the Consumers Banking Association, Richard Hunt said “Again, we do not want to charge our customers. We were forced to by Congress interjecting themselves into the marketplace.”

David Lazarus with The Los Angeles Times stated: The Federal Reserve says that it pretty much costs about 4 cents to process a debit card transaction, considering the huge economies of scale, 4 cents. So that means the current average of 44 cents represents a 1,000 percent profit. So now that we know that, as of tomorrow, that's going to be cut in roughly half to 21 cents, well, that's still a 500 percent profit.”

Bank of America isn’t going to lose money, their profits will be lowered. Yet Bank of America has the unmitigated gall to justify these profits by saying they provide fraud and overdraft protection, manufacture the card (is it made overseas?) and maintaining call centers. These plastic cards and all the other “services” they offer herd people into spending their money faster and with fees attached!

Using the excuse of maintaining “call centers” to justify mega profits would be laughable if it wasn’t so sad; the call centers are outsourced and they pay wages too low for Americans to compete with.

Now, their lust for money and power is transparent. No amount of profits will satisfy these gargantuan banks who are “too big to fail”. Not only that, the bankers threaten us. Richard Hunt said “This is a credit union and small bank issue. You are going to see thousands of small community banks go under because of regulation by Congress.”

On the contrary since the Savings and Loan bailout of the eighties, thousands of banks across the country have gone under due to lack of regulation including century old investment banks like Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch. The truth is the opposite of what Richard Hunt said, bigger banks have swallowed up the smaller banks and that’s how we ended up with banks too big to fail.

Today, the banks are coming right out and saying they will retaliate and make us pay for government doing what it’s supposed to do, protect the powerless from the powerful… except for when it comes to bailing them out of course, then they want Congress and all of the American people to interject billions to bail them out from their own lawless risk taking, so they can come back stronger than ever to charge us more fees. The deadly spiral is absolutely outrageous. 　

Jobs Creators or Slave Drivers?

There’s a lot of political talk these days about cutting taxes and slashing regulations on the “jobs creators”; but just who are these “jobs creators” and what kinds of jobs are they creating?

According to an AP article, service companies now account for eighty percent of the economy and all new jobs, and they consist of the health care; retail; utilities; and the financial industries.

Meanwhile, Bank of America will lay off 30,000 workers; National Grid; a utility company, reported lay offs of 1,200 in February of 2011, supposedly to reorganize and provide better service. Well, hurricane Irene proved that less employees will not provide better service but instead, higher profits for the company and greater difficulties and losses for the public.

An AP article reported in January 2011 that corporations have one trillion, and in July 2011 stated corporations are reluctant to spend the $1.9 trillion especially in the US, which would create jobs.

Rather than lending to entrepreneurs, banks instead choose to park it at the Federal Reserve, where it can’t create jobs.

An individual wrote a letter to the editor about his ability to create an LED company and hire ten people, but he was unable to create such a company due to the lack of funding.

Another entrepreneur was researching how to make oil from mold, as that’s how oil is made in the first place, but was finding it difficult to get his idea off the ground due to the lack of funding. A Mobil Oil gas station owner in St. Louis, who already owns 23 ‘profitable’ stations, every one was doing well, he’d been profitable for 30 years, could not secure a loan in spite of his collateral, to build another station because banks were withholding the funds to do so.

With corporations sitting on trillions; banks refusing to lend; entrepreneurs unable to secure funding; the federal government unable to spend along with state governments playing the game of which of their cohorts will get the biggest tax cuts, along with the largest reductions on worker’s rights, who’s left to create jobs? No one, We‘re left begging for jobs. Just the way they like it.

On August 4 it was reported that $2 billion had been spent on bullet proof vests whose inserts were faulty due to lack of proper testing. How many entrepreneurs could have been helped and how many jobs created with that government $2 billion? Just as the military is being given a false sense of security, the public is being lied to and lulled into a false sense of security, and the ’cure’ they say is to cut taxes and regulations on the wealthy, and reduce the government spending by cutting the regulators and inspectors, and that will create the jobs.

Hello!!! It takes money for job creation and supposedly we don’t have any. But there’s plenty of money to be wasted on military suppliers and contractors here and abroad.

The Economy of Debt

The AP reports 7-22-11 “Bernanke said more stimulus would only be necessary if economic conditions worsened and deflation re-emerged as a threat.” “He also said the Fed was nimble enough to respond if the opposite happened. He said the Fed was ready to raise interest rates that have been held at record lows for nearly three years, should the central bank fear a greater risk of inflation.”

Thomas Jefferson said, “I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.”

Centuries apart yet the warning couldn’t be more relevant if it were said today. We should stop letting the banks issue credit; it’s no longer about paying off credit, it’s all about “managing debt“. First they issued debt, then they insured the debt, then they bet against the debt they insured, knowing full well that the debt would not be paid back, and made billions while rigging the bets. And it was all done in secret, while the Federal Reserve, the central bank charged with ensuring monetary stability, full employment and consumer protection did nothing.

The end result is that our economy is too dependent upon debt, which has been a leading economic driver for decades. It’s time to dump the debt makers, freeze the banks and re-examine the issuing of currency and debt and who controls it.

Mayer Amschel founder of the House of Rothschild said “Let me issue and control a nation’s money, and I care not who writes the laws.” No wonder the government can only rewrite the laws affecting social programs rather than rewrite the laws about who controls the issuing power of the nation’s currency.

Too many of us are being robbed and deprived of property with millions more on the verge of loosing theirs. These gargantuan banks are like a cancer on this nation and they will eventually deprive us all.

Thomas Jefferson’s warning has turned into prophecy.

Austerity cuts or Tea Party fright

The AP’s article of August 6^th “The Tea Party exerts its influence on GOP states, “the Tea Party is “driving the conversation” said Republican consultant Danny Diaz. “If you are seeking office in this environment” he said “it would behoove you to discuss the out-of-control spending that’s taking place in Washington”.

And that’s the catch phrase being used, “out of control spending“, but not much is said about where all the money is going, other than Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security.

David Leonhardt of the NY Times actually said on Jon Stewart’s Daily Show that the biggest driver of the deficit is Medicare. In other words it’s old people causing us huge debt. Old people have always been with us, why blame them now? It’s easier to blame the people than it is to take a real look at where the excessive spending is occurring.

Where’s the mention of the billions we’re spending on supplying the troops in Afghanistan? The leader of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai’s brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, recently assassinated was a large power broker who had a trucking industry. We pay out billions to people in Afghanistan for the circuitous trucking route necessary to supply the US troops. Now here’s a brother of an ally taking money from us shot by his one of his own men. Come on Wally, how telling is that?

When the US first went into Iraq truckloads of cash and weapons just disappeared, with no questions asked! Here’s two blatant examples of the excessive spending initiated by corrupt wars, yet the Tea Party says nothing about it.

Another area the Tea Party doesn’t mention is the 100,000 contractors the US is currently employing in Afghanistan each with an average salary of $250,000. How much is that costing us? And even if the troops come home, how many contractors will remain?

These questions and the true costs of war will remain hidden in the Tea Party driven search for “austerity” cuts, which include, but are not limited to Medicare and the pensions of military retirees. We have plenty of money for war, we just don’t have money for the retirees who risked it all to fight the wars.

If the Tea Party were really serious about “restoring fiscal responsibility” they would demand a full accounting of where every tax dollar is spent; rather than hiding behind catchy slogans while being too afraid to point out specifics. If we ever had an actual truthful accounting of where each tax dollar goes, the American people would revolt and hang every politician for high treason.

Drowning Visions the Norquist Way

The Washington Spectator reports that Grover Norquist said we don’t need a president with ideas.

What’s even more astonishing is that a vast majority of Republicans have signed onto Norquist’s pledge to never raise taxes on the wealthy ever; essentially pledging their allegiance to a faction, the Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), over the United States of America.

The founding fathers and the Revolutionaries pledged themselves to the ideal that man has natural rights which were bestowed upon government, the radical opposite from the belief at the time, that rights were given to men by the government.

Yet when interviewed on the NewsHour, Grover Norquist said, if any Republican dares to even think of raising taxes on the wealthy, they will be going back on their pledge to their constituents. Ha, wielding conformity as a threat, hardly a radical idea.

From the Washington Spectator-”Norquist used a corporate analogy to make his point. The Coca Cola company works hard to ensure the quality of it’s product, because product defines brand. Were someone to discover a “rat head in the bottom of the bottle,” Norquist said “Coke’s brand would be ruined for everyone.” “Republican elected officials who vote to increase taxes are rat heads in a Coke bottle”.

Grover’s brand is tax cuts for the wealthy; which were renewed last December but no jobs were created. But rather than believe the reality that tax cuts do not create jobs, the country is convinced all we have to do is lower taxes for the rich and the economy will right itself. Thanks to elitist right-wing factions like the Americans for Tax Reform and the evil media megaphone Fox news; owned by Rupert Murdock is the tea party and republican’s personal broadcasting media station spewing the propaganda that the idiots believe, and it is the ‘gun’ that is shooting the bullet to the brain of the United States, leading to our downfall as a great nation.

FDR said without vision the people perish. What’s Grover‘s vision, to drown government in a bath tub. When that happens, (and we’re well on the way), the founder’s vision of the self governing rights of man, will be drowned by factions. James Madison warned us against factions, a lesson corporate fascists like Grover Norquist and Fox News, have convinced the masses to forget.

Hedging the Debt Ceiling

The politicians are willing to have a “showdown” over raising the debt ceiling but not much discussion on where all this debt is coming from, other than the policies of this president. There’s a lot more to it than that, but making a simplistic answer it’s more easily acceptable to the public.

Wall Street has failed the country. In June 2011 the AP reported that “JP-Morgan Chase & Co. agreed to pay $153.6 million to settle fraud charges that it misled buyers of complex mortgage investments just as the housing market was collapsing.” And “J.P. Morgan Securities a division of the powerful Wall Street bank, failed to tell investors that a hedge fund helped select the investment portfolio all the while knowing and betting that the portfolio would fail.”

In July 2010 The Securities and Exchange Commission has

reached a $550 million settlement with Goldman Sachs in its case accusing the company of misleading investors in mortgage-backed securities, the agency said in a statement ."

The role of Wall Street is to channel investment money into activities which create jobs. Instead two of the biggest banks pay millions for rigging the system while funneling billions into their pockets. In 2010 Wall Street bankers took in $20.8 billion in bonuses.

Where’s the showdown over this failure of Wall Street? There isn’t one, and despite this gargantuan failure, the Republicans refuse to raise taxes on these same hedge fund managers (who pay less in taxes than the working stiff).

If the Republicans are so concerned over government spending then why don’t they increase the income by taxing these hedge fund billionaires who set people up to fail then bet they would fail? And why aren’t the banksters doing jail time for what they’ve done?

According to book “Thirteen Bankers” by Simon Johnson banks today have more power over President Obama than he has over them. And if they have more power than this president, they’ll have even more power over the next president. Just blaming Obama isn’t going to reduce their strangle hold over the economy.

Then, to add insult to injury, Standard & Poor’s said if the debt ceiling wasn’t raised and the US government only paid the interest on it’s debt, then this would result in a lowered credit rating. Well some of the “investments” picked by hedge funds were made up of interest only mortgage loans. And these same credit ratings agencies were paid to lie about these risky securities, and gave them triple ‘A’ ratings, which investors bought in droves due to the high credit rating.

And now they’re going to lower our credit rating after they helped spark the economic tsunami engulfing the world? What an affront. They should be facing jail time not giving out credit ratings. The reality of the situation is that Wall Street and the bankers are rewarded for letting the country down and transferring responsibility to the citizens through bail outs and blame for the housing crisis. All which has been achieved through decades of bipartisan submission, resulting in monstrous gains for the few and massive suffering for the many.

Repealing Obamacare

Repealing Obamacare is a false crusade and fixating on it is misleading.

Which is not to say that the health reform bill is the answer, but the astronomical rise in the costs of health insurance will not be solved without facing reality.

For instance, in 1985 a solo physician could have a practice and hire one employee to do all the office work. Today, that same practioner has to hire four to five people to do all the clerical work the insurance companies insist upon to see a patient. On the one hand, this creates jobs you might say. But on the other hand, the insurance companies are in control of the physician’s income, so based on this control how well can the physician pay their employees and what type of benefits could they provide? Only as much as the insurance companies allow.

The insurance companies are very inefficient. It is well known that insurance companies do not receive mail or faxes. Submitting “appeals” on denied claims is one area which demonstrates this truth. One can send in an appeal to an insurance company and then call them to ensure that they did receive it. Two weeks later, the insurance company sends a letter stating that the claim is denied because no appeal was received. Call the insurance company back, and yes, they do see where the appeal was received and they’ll have it reviewed again. All medical practioners have to hire people to deal with this nonsense. No wonder the insurance companies only spend eighty percent of premiums on medical care. The rest goes to denying claims, through made up rules enforced by them.

Another truth is monopolization. UnitedHealth Care boasts seventy million members. The population of the United States is roughly three hundred million. This means that one insurance company has almost one third of the population as customers. It’s too much control and is of great concern, because UnitedHealth Care does not tell the truth. Call them on a claim that’s not paid and they say they’ll pay it, they were wrong to deny it. A month later when the claim is still not paid, call them and they’ll say they’re not going to pay it and they never said they would pay the claim. Which means that UnitedHealth Care collected a premium but refused to pay for the medical care.

These are unethical business practices; doctors and subscribers are powerless against the immoral and monopolistic health insurance corporations and their lobbyists, who insure that laws are passed which benefit them only. This is the reality of the situation, which neither “Obamacare” nor it’s repeal addresses.

Great Corporate Control

John Boehner; Speaker of the House said, “We can't raise taxes on the very people who create jobs, and keep spending money that we don't have.”

The founders understood job creation needs start up funds and a stable banking system to encourage entrepreneurs to be the “jobs creators”, something we lack here in the US.

From the book 13 Bankers by Simon Johnson -”Alexander Hamilton believed that the government should ensure that sufficient credit was available to fund economic development and transform America into a prosperous, entrepreneurial country, and who “favored a stronger federal government that actively supported economic development.”

Today we have Joel Naroff, president of Naroff Economic Advisers stating, “A lot of the especially large companies that have a lot of business overseas are looking towards their overseas markets, rather than the domestic U.S. markets to expand. As a result of that, they may be making a lot of money, but they may be putting that money to use somewhere else outside the United States.”

Lisa Lynch Dean of the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandies University said “new entrepreneurs that come into a bank that are looking for funds to go off with some new idea that no one else has done before are encountering a lot of resistance in terms of raising that capital that they need to grow their businesses.” “And a lot of net new employment at this stage of the recovery in the past would have come from new businesses starting up and adding employees. And that's not happening either.”

What we need is a strong federal government whose main interest is a sound financial environment where entrepreneurs can flourish and create jobs. Instead, we have an economy where mega Banks are in control of the nation’s wealth and monopolistic Conglomerates are in control of the jobs. This economic and political influence renders our politicians incapable of standing up for the founding principals which made this nation one of the most prosperous in the world. Today we are seeing giant corporations creating astronomical job losses, yet Representative Boehner insists the way to stop it, is to cut taxes on these jobs exporters.

Teddy Roosevelt said in his 1901 Inaugural address that “Great corporations exist only because they are created and safe guarded by our institutions; and it is therefore our right and our duty to see that they work in harmony with these institutions”. The economy will not improve until we reclaim our right to ensure economic harmony.

Racing for Global Profits

“The Associated Press, which released the study on CEO compensation, put it this way: In the boardroom, it's as if the great recession never happened.

CEO pay, including salaries, bonuses, and stock options, was up 24 percent last year, to a level higher than 2007, just before the recession hit. The study came a day after the Fortune 500 list was released, showing corporate profits increased by 81 percent last year, or more than $300 billion. CEO’s were rewarded because corporate profits soared in 2010 as the economy gradually got stronger and companies cut costs.”

When corporations talk of cutting costs, what they really mean is cutting the American worker, we cost too much. Corporations are raking in billions in profits overseas, they don’t even need us as customers, let alone as employees. Profits were up for companies last year and yet according to the AP “… companies could limit raises for rank and file workers because of the weak labor market.”

These global giants were made in America and exist because of our laws which at one time ensured a level playing field benefiting all Americans. Now, after decades of these megalith giants eliminating those laws and instituting their own through bought and paid for politicians, a majority of American citizens have falling wages, yet bonuses for the few “…Two-thirds of the executives got a bigger one than they had in 2009, some more than three times as big.” Meanwhile it’s debt for the rest of us due to uncontrolled price gouging for the necessities of life.

Deborah Wince-Smith, president and CEO of the Council on Competitiveness said, “… you know, the issue of corporate profits, companies sitting on, you know, over $1.5 trillion, where are they investing it? Are they investing it in the United States? There is a global race for the best investment, the best high-value activity.”

Actually it’s a race to suck up the wealth and productivity of this country into the hands of the few, by cutting out the American worker in a rabid search for obscene profits.

It’s glaringly obvious what is going on; CEO pay, bonuses and perks are on the increase because they cut pay and benefits of the American worker. Corporations sit on trillions, while racing for winner-take-all in global profits.

Deborah Wince-Smith also said “you know, 80 percent of all middle-class consumers will be outside the United States by 2020.”These corporations have outsourced our way of life and our standard of living. Well, almost all of us, the American way of life won’t change for the CEO’s, it’s only changed for the rank and file, who helped make these corporations the global blood sucking giants that they are today.

It's the Entitlements Stupid

Senator Mitch McConnell said “We have over $50 trillion in unfunded liabilities, that is, promises we have made that we cannot keep, to very popular things, like Medicare and Social Security and Medicaid, the health program for the poor, how much more do we need to know?”

A lot! For instance the Washington Spectator reports the real financial threat facing this nation is credit default swaps. A credit default swap is the swapping of risk with a third party, essentially to insure you against default. Now, because of decades of deregulation, credit default swaps and other complicated derivatives are traded without any regulation, resulting in “JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs holding more than 95 percent of derivatives exposure among the nation’s top 25 bank holding companies.”

A bank holding company isn’t just a bank, it’s a mega conglomerate and has a lot more companies under it than just banks, like insurance companies. Precisely why AIG, an insurance company who’s also a bank holding company, was included in the bank bail outs and why we’re on the hook for all those trillions in credit default swaps.

Eric Dinalo former superintendent of the New York Insurance Department stated “ in 2008 the total of private sector debt was about $16 trillion. So it appears that swaps on that debt could total at least three times as much actual debt outstanding.” Oddly enough, that’s close to $50 trillion.

The Spectator continues: “The numbers alone are terrifying. In 2008, Bear Stearns had written derivatives contracts backing credit valued at 10.2 trillion, a figure three quarters the size of the U. S. economy. When institutions with balance sheets like that go south, the entire economy goes with them.”

No wonder the Senator is “talking about trillions here, not millions -- I mean, not billions, we're talking about trillions.” It is easier to convince the populace that future debt is due to entitlements than it is to convince them it’s the bankers and their trick credit default swaps causing future debt. And this is just the tip of the iceberg, there’s a lot more spending on Wall Street that we need to know about, but sadly all we hear is the chant: it’s ‘the entitlements stupid‘.

Counter Balancing the Budget

Paul Ryan’s budget proposal “Path to Prosperity” is being hailed as courageous, which is an understatement, because it takes a strong man to balance a lop sided budget on the backs of the old, the sick, the poor and the jobless.

The budget has been designed to benefit the defense corporations and banks over the people. Former Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson said, ”You need to get rid of the 250,000 contractors in the Defense Department where you can really pick up some small change…We have a defense budget now which is larger than all 14 countries. That ought to get you somewhere.” Blackwater Security makes 94 percent of its profit from the federal government, according to the book Pinstripe Patronage.

William Greider writes in the Nation magazine Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner didn’t help struggling homeowners modify their mortgages but instead gave hundreds of billions to big banks “with no strings attached”.

The reasoning behind not helping millions of Americans facing foreclosure is that the Treasury didn’t want to create moral hazard amongst the citizens by letting them think they can get something for nothing like the mega banks did.

The Republicans are concerned with lulling citizens into complacency and laziness with the humane safety net this country provides to the terminally ill, severely disabled and the jobless.

It should be clear why the budget is lop sided and laced with huge deficit deceit. But yet it isn’t, because the corporations and their minions have convinced many that they are an example of the best free market capitalism has to offer, except they didn’t get to where they are due to hard work and effort rewarded by free market capitalism; they got to where they are because they bought control of our nation’s economy and the federal budget and were allowed by our elected officials to change the rules enabling them to funnel our nation‘s wealth into the hands of the few, while creating huge deficits for the rest of us.

From the Nation magazine: “The House voted to repeal healthcare reform after taking millions of dollars in campaign contributions from medical and insurance interests. Tea Party favorite Jim DeMint, along with eighteen other colleagues, introduced a Senate bill to repeal the tepid financial reform bill passed last year. Collectively, the senators backing repeal of those reforms have taken nearly $50 million in campaign contributions from the very Wall Street interests who were going to be affected by the law, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics.”

No wonder their budget concern is the laziness and immorality of the common people and not the abusive crookedness of our politicians and how spending really works in Washington.

Budget Battle

Even though a government shut down has been averted for the time being, it just goes to show the how the tyranny of the minority governs us, making millions sweat it out while addressing ideological issues rather than the seriously harmful issue like trillions for perpetual war on foreign soil.

The budget battle and the threat of a government shut down is an example of the tyranny of the minority. Six hundred and thirty five legislators made millions of Americans sweat it out. Military families wouldn’t receive their pay and 800,000 government workers would be furloughed.

Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus stated “What the Republicans are looking for is to take the general federal-funding program for family planning known as Title X, to turn that into a block grant, to give it to states, many of which, you may recall, have Republican governors and perhaps give those Republican governors the flexibility to administer the program in a way that, guess who, Planned Parenthood, might not be able to get the funds.”

This is what they’re fighting about, exemplifying the tyranny of the minority, where keeping the government functioning turns into a battle over abortion.

And while on the subject of battles, just last week Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said the US might stay in Iraq if the Iraqis asked us to stay. How much more will that cost us and where is the concern to get out of that country and cut spending? There isn’t any.

At one time there were more contractors on the ground in Iraq than there were US soldiers. Contractors cost up to $250,000, so four contractors is a million dollars, eight is two million and so forth. So what does hundreds of thousands of contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan cost us? Big enough to rival funding to Planned Parenthood. But this is how the minority misleads us, by attaching heated emotions to all aspects of governing.

Speaker of the House John Boehner said he’s “damn serious” about spending cuts and wants to know when the President and Congressional Democrats will get serious about cutting spending.

Yes, just when will John Boehner, and the rest of the politicians get serious about cutting trillion dollar spending on expenses like war rather than million dollar expenses like Planned Parenthood?

Controlling Food Costs

John Boehner said-“…Washington needs to do a lot more to end the uncertainty and get our economy moving again. It's clear that we need to cut spending, we need to stop unnecessary regulations, end the threat of tax hikes…. ” The Speaker has his talking point, to end uncertainty. But just whose uncertainty is he concerned with?

ExxonMobil pays nothing in taxes, yet the Speaker insists we end the threat of tax hikes. It doesn’t make sense, but neither does the fact that the oil companies are the ones receiving the pay raise Americans received from the lowered Social Security tax deductions the working class pays. Is he talking about righting this tax hike on the little people for the sake of Big Oil to get the economy going again?

Where is the end of constantly rising prices for oil and food? The Nation magazine states-“Now, with oil prices again on the rise, the price of food is likely to surpass all previous records and spark additional upheavals around the world. What we are seeing, in effect, is a vicious cycle in which rising oil prices drive up the cost of food, which triggers political disorder in the oil-producing countries, which in turn pushes oil to still higher prices, propelling food costs even higher, and so forth---with no end in sight.” And here in the U.S., food prices have risen thirty percent just since January.

And talk about spending, where is the certainty of cutting huge government subsides to Big Oil and Agri Business? According to Republicans “farm cuts’ are off the table. Whatever happened with the president’s pledge during his State of the Union Speech to cut subsidies to Big Oil? We haven’t heard a word about it, while they proclaim unbelievable profits. But we’ve heard plenty on spending cuts for the old and the sick, and those of the “Greatest Generation” living on fixed incomes. We’re just not hearing about the kind of spending cuts which could make a real difference, just the ones that harm the unprotected.

The double speak on all sides is blatant, while we’re left with the certainty that oil and food prices will continue to rise with no one wanting to stop them. All we really hear are the actors repeating their lines in a well rehearsed play. And it is a play, it’s called the history of the world; oppression rules while the actors tell the masses what they want them to hear, and what they should think.

Deficit Deceit For Hire

Republicans want to cut federal government spending which could result in 700,00 jobs lost. When Speaker John Boehner was informed of this possibility, his response was “so be it”.

Republicans will eliminate public jobs while doing nothing about the rampant explosion of contracting jobs that out sourcing two wars has cost us.

From the book “Pinstripe Patronage Political Favoritism From The Club House to the White House and Beyond” by Martin and Susan Tolchin- “The author of a riveting book on Blackwater, Jeremy Scahill, argues the magnitude of Blackwater’s activities is much greater that the public or the government is willing to admit: Americans are under the impression that the United States currently has about 145,000 active duty troops on the ground in Iraq. What is seldom mentioned is the fact that there are at least 126,000 private personnel deployed alongside the official armed forces. These private forces effectively double the size of the occupation force, largely without the knowledge of the U. S. taxpayers that foot the bill”. “How can I get soldiers to re-enlist offering them a $2,000 bonus, when they can go to Blackwater and draw beginning salaries of $80,000-$100,000?” complained one high-ranking army official”. “A House-Senate conference committee reporting on the use of private contractors in intelligence work estimated that the average civilian employee (in all sixteen intelligence agencies) cost the government $126,500 annually in salary, while the cost of the “core contractor” hovered at $250,000.”

Why aren’t the Republicans, the Speaker or even the Democrats looking at these exorbitant and un-necessary costs?

Again from Pinstripe Politics-”… in the words of Scott Amey, general counsel at the Project on Government Oversight-The problem, continued Amey, is that “the real politics of contracting is less about contracting than it is about campaign contributions” Amey estimated that in FY 2008, the government spent $531 billion for contracts…” Republican aims are to cut $600 billion from the federal budget. Cut out the contractors and we’re almost there.

General David Petraeus commander of forces in Afghanistan is guarded by a security corporation hired by the State Department. Maybe we could save a bundle if the US military could provide security to their own commanding general. After all if they’re capable of multiple deployments, surely we must think they’re capable of protecting their general.

The American public wouldn’t swallow the deficit deceit being perpetrated by the republicans if they only knew where their tax dollars were really going; into the pockets of large defense contractors and not just into the pockets of public employees.

Spending Cuts or More Deficit Deceit?

A lot of budget nonsense is being proposed which just doesn’t make sense.

Like the president’s proposal to cut back heating assistance to the elderly to 2008 levels. The $2 billion “savings” pales in comparison to the projected $1.1 trillion cost of the Medicare drug prescription plan over the next ten years. Republicans are howling about spending, yet they passed this trillion dollar giveaway to pharmaceutical conglomerates in 2003 with no concerns of how we were going to pay for it. If the Republicans are so concerned over debt they helped create, then let’s take back this trillion dollar windfall to pharmaceutical giants, oh but we can’t curb the dastardly profits corporations make at the expense of our seniors. We can only afford to medicate them, we just can’t afford heat for them.

Republican proposals include cutting funding for the FDA and the EPA.

Just last year peanut butter paste made in the state of Georgia was recalled due to contamination from bird droppings in the manufacturing plant. The federal government farmed out the responsibility for inspections to the state, who of course didn’t have the money to inspect the plants, so they went uninspected. resulting in tainted food which sickened Americans.

Last fall the salmonella out break in eggs which sickened thousands, was traced back to one egg producer with a history of numerous safety and work violations. Obviously regulation hasn’t stopped them from producing filthy food, so what is reducing funding for the nation’s food safety going to do? It will just make a failing system even worse; sickening and killing even more Americans than it does now. Will it cripple profits? Highly unlikely, there’s no stopping us from buying food.

Of course the EPA has to be de-funded, after all, pollution is good, it makes clean water scarce so then it becomes a commodity, then it becomes corporate controlled, and ‘profitable’.

Regulations do not prevent corporations from making mega profits, nor will freezing the elderly or feeding us poisoned food and water solve the deficit situation. Getting our money back from mega conglomerate global pharmaceutical corporations should be one of the first places we look to reduce the deficit.

But that’s never going to happen, we can cut social and consumer protection programs, but we can’t address the ‘problem programs’ of trillion dollar giveaways, as the political payoffs protect the corporations, instead of protecting the nation’s population.

Raiding Retirement Funds

Increasingly and with an alarming rate, pension plans are being blamed for the downfall of state budgets, which is not the whole truth. State pension plans invested heavily in the fraudulent subprime mortgages because of the high credit ratings those worthless bonds were given, and lost money as a result. In September 2010 an AP business article reported--“in 2008 Pennsylvania state employees retirement fund had investment losses of nearly 29%.”

The nationwide bank bail out and massive tax reductions on corporations are the drivers behind pension plan defaults. States don’t have the money like they used to, and rather than blame bank giveaways and corporations paying zero in taxes, they blame the people. Besides, it‘s easier to convince the masses it‘s public pensions driving the deficit, than to convince them it‘s the corporate/ bank people who created the country’s massive debts.

Interviewed on the NewsHour, Independent Senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders, stated, “this year, ExxonMobil, the most profitable corporation in the history of the world, is not paying a nickel in federal income taxes, despite having made $19 billion last year. In 2005, one-quarter of large corporations in America making a trillion in revenue didn't pay a nickel in taxes.” ”The deficit primarily has been caused by two wars unfunded, huge tax breaks to people who don't need it, an insurance-company-written Medicare Part D prescription drug program, and the bailout of Wall Street.”

The modern day double speak convinces us that we all need to share in the pain of debt reduction to take our focus off the real culprits; the bankers, the war machines, the insurance and pharmaceutical corporations who have caused this economic depression.

The great unwashed masses are expected to share the pain, just not jet setters like John Boehner. From the Washington Spectator “…(Boehner) maintains especially tight ties with a circle of lobbyists and aids representing some of the nation’s biggest businesses including Goldman Sachs, Google, Citigroup, R. J. Reynolds, MillerCoors and UPS,” the (NY) Times reported.” “They have contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to his campaigns, provided him with rides on their corporate jets, socialized with him at luxury golf resorts and water-front bashes…” The voters share the pain while the jet setters keep the gain. 　

Debt Hysteria

How can anyone take the debt reduction antics of our government seriously? It’s ludicrous to hear talk of the millions here and the millions there, when the Federal Reserve and our government has doled out trillions to banks, and the majority of citizens don’t even know it.

In her 2009 book “It Takes a Pillage”, Nomi Prins said “…the Fed…continued it’s transformation into a hedge fund of last resort, relaxing its collateral posting rules and lending trillions of dollars to the Street. Where banks once had to pony up secure assets such as Treasury bonds to get loans from the Fed, they could now post far more risky assets in return for very favorable loan conditions, and the Fed would keep a lid on who they were, and how much they got”.

William Greider writes in the January 2011 edition of the Nation magazine -”To get a rough glimpse of what the corporate state looks like, study the Federal Reserve’s list of banking, finance and business firms that received the $3.3 trillion the central bank dispensed in low-interest loans during the financial crisis (this valuable information in revealed only because reform legislators like Bernie Sanders fought for disclosure).”

Again from “It Takes a Pillage“---“Remember, Wall Street of the last ten years has been defined by an insane fixation on borrowing money wherever possible, even borrowing against wealth that didn’t even exist. So, lets just say that all of the banks borrowed up to ten times the amount those securities were once worth-a very conservative estimate, considering how hard banks worked to overturn the net capital rule in 2004, which enabled banks to borrow up to thirty times what they had in their (already illegal) wallets. …even with the conservative estimate, we’re looking at a possible system wide loss of $140 trillion. By that token, the $13 trillion of federal bailouts and loans, including the measly $700 billion in TARP money that the media likes to focus on, is a drop in a big scary bucket.”

Trillions have been given to the banks in secret, maybe this is why Rand Paul, newly elected Senator from Kentucky, is dazzling the masses by complaining that if re-elected and in 8 years this president will have spent close to $46 trillion, (which is not even close to the amount of debt banks piled up for us). 　

No wonder the government is cutting heating assistance to the elderly and food for the poor, this debt is out there and they know it.

Until they start talking about recouping some of the trillions we gave away to banks to cover their fraudulent actions, no one should be taking any of this debt hysteria seriously.

Who Regulates the Regulators?

John Boehner said the Republicans’ top priority was going to be the jobs issue. But what is the Speaker’s first order of business? Side tracking us with their bogus vote on repealing the health care bill. By focusing on repealing this bill they are doing us a great dis-service; we aren’t paying enough attention to the detrimental effects of too much consolidation of all industries in the US.

The merging mania we’ve seen in health insurance has been happening since President Reagan deregulated hospitals and insurance companies. Once allowed to become ‘for profit‘, insurance companies became monopolies able to fix prices and eliminate competition, part of the reason why this luke warm health insurance reform bill has become a political football.

The merging mania continues to this day; on Monday Feb 11 stocks were up on news of several mergers and the FCC has given GE permission to sell NBC to Comcast, already the nation’s largest cable provider, who will now become an even bigger media monopoly.

Bernie Sanders independent from Vermont said “Once we allow these companies to become this powerful, the FCC does not regulate them. They regulate the FCC.”

And it’s the same with the other huge conglomerates; Big Oil, Banks Too Big to Fail, along with the insurance and pharmaceutical industries. We don’t regulate them, they regulate us.

Republicans faithfully kept up the lament that it’s government regulations preventing companies from creating jobs. Shortly thereafter, the president ordered a review of all regulations to see which ones are prohibitive to job creation. Even Adam Smith who wrote the book on capitalism “Wealth of Nations”, said, there has to be regulation to keep the crooks from taking advantage of people.

This is certainly not what Thomas Paine had in mind when he said, “Rights are inherently in all the inhabitants; charters by annulling those rights, in the majority, leave the right by exclusion, in the hands of the few…(They) consequently are instruments of injustice.”

“But charters and corporations have a more extensive evil effect than what relates merely to elections. They are the source of endless contention in the places where they exist, and they lessen the common rights of national society…This species of feudality is kept up to aggrandise the corporations at the ruin of towns; and the effect is visible.”

His words are as true today as they were when they were first written. We’re seeing the ruination of towns, contention over health insurance, millions of Americans without jobs and millions of Americans losing their homes, all due to the evil effects of corporations who have become too big and too powerful to the detriment of us all. 　

Adventures In Rewriting History

A publisher, New South Books, thinks they can write racism out of history by revising the words in Mark Twain’s book “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn."

This prejudice was evident through two wars, one during the war in the Philippines and the other during our lives, the Vietnam war. The prejudices exhibited toward the veterans when they came home from both wars was the same; society shunned them for the misfortune of being in a dirty war not of their making. Not only is Mark Twain receiving criticism today, he received plenty of criticism when he was out spoken against that war, when he said “my country right or wrong”.

Benjamin Franklin said one of the best friends you can have is someone who points out your faults to you. Mark Twain was an expert at pointing out faults in human nature and a country. This is precisely why it’s so ironic that Mark Twain is the one who is being rewritten.

The Thought Police are here. Big Brother is Big Business not Big Government. That’s why a publisher thinks that by revising the words, they can write prejudice out of people. But rather than admit American history had faults, Big Brother just changes the words and poof, all evidence is gone. The future will not have an accurate time line of events. You can’t know where you’re going if you don’t know where you’ve been.

Pretending prejudices didn’t exist is delusional. Changing words doesn’t change history, prejudice will always exist, especially when it’s the type which is taught to others who don’t know better.

Buyer Beware

All political issues have become emotional.

Why, we even have TV personalities and politicians crying on stage to show us how it’s done. By controlling us through emotions, we’ve become irrelevant.

Our government operates under the policy that free markets know best, but in reality, the idea that free markets can regulate themselves can only happen in a perfect world. But in this world, OUR world, all it’s brought is high unemployment to US citizens and bankruptcy to the nation.

Oh but there is a plan in place to increase jobs through exports. Yeah exporting our standard of living along with the affluence of the middle class has been our main export for decades.

Corporations do not view us as citizens with value but as brain washed consumers with our only value being how much of our money they can convince us to give to them.

After being bailed out by the American tax payer, General Motors is making profits in China; it no longer matters if we can afford to buy these products, global markets will sustain American corporations. They don’t care if profits come from here or abroad, we‘re irrelevant. And it isn’t just the citizens who have become irrelevant, political candidates have become irrelevant too, it’s just that they get paid more.

The recent Supreme Court decision allowing corporations free reign in campaign spending has made the vote for the politician irrelevant along with our rights to information, we’ll never know who is behind the financing of any political ads. So if a politician doesn’t vote the way a corporation wants, the corporation can legally seek revenge by pouring millions into negative attack ads, and attack ads win elections.. for the opponent.

Political candidates have become a product, just like any other product on TV. One newly elected Republican even had his face on a box of Kraft macaroni and cheese. Only with these Political products, there’s no money back guarantee and it’s buyer beware.