Mitt Romney's Investors

The Wealthy Few or the Welfare of the Nation?

Mitt Romney got himself into trouble a few weeks ago when a secretly recorded video of him was leaked to the press. In this video, Romney made his infamous "47%" comments as well as a bunch of other erroneous, insulting and insensitive comments about the citizens he intends to lead. Without a doubt, these comments were intended for a narrow group of his supporters and something that the Romney campaign wished would never have seen the light of day. But Romney has made other comments that I found to be far more revealing about him and those comments got little to no scrutiny by the press. The comments and their tone were perhaps less overt than the remarks revealed in the clandestine video and were therefore less worthy of attention from the sensationalist journalism pieces produced by our dysfunctional news media. So let's look at some of Romney's words and see if they reveal what his true positions are...

To me, the most damning statement Romney has made in his entire political career came in 2008 as he was running for the Republican nomination. All the Republicans were trying to make light of the economic downturn and looming financial collapse so as not to cast doubt on the efficacy of the Republicans' handling of the economy during the Bush years. George Bush famously stated: "I don't think we are headed to a recession...", while John McCain claimed that "The fundamentals of our economy are strong." Mitt Romney added that "People need to realize that this is a great time to buy." [Romney's quote went largely unnoticed so it is extremely difficult to find references to it. The web page linked to (above) is the only one I could find after about an hour of searching. Although it is not a "reliable source" it does prove that I didn't just imagine the quote, and the author of the article seems to have the same opinion I do.]

A great time to buy? Was Romney really suggesting that people who had lost their jobs and were finding it difficult to pay their mortgage go out and sink the rest of their money in the stock market? Or maybe he was suggesting that they use the remainder of their credit card balances to get into the stock market game? I presume not. He was really saying: "Rich people are in a great position to become richer still. So what's the problem?" To me, it was a pretty clear declaration of his domestic economic policy: to help rich people make more money. And if the poor and middle class can somehow find a way to be rich, then he'll help them too.

Granted, it is a lot of assumption to lay upon a single off-the-cuff statement made by Romney. But it did prick up my ears, so to speak. I've since been reading articles about the man, and although there are stories about Romney's generosity and humanitarian endeavors, they seem far fewer than the atrocities that he committed while at Bain Capital. Those stories support my initial assessment of the man.

Romney always made money for his investors, even when businesses they acquired failed, all of the workers were fired and their pensions they paid into were cancelled. Even in tragic cases such as those, Romney's investors turned handsome profits of hundreds of millions of dollars. So, in his role at Bain, the investors did very well but everyone else did horribly bad.

Now that Romney is running for president, one must ask him/herself an important question: who are Romney's investors? Those are the people that will do well in a Romney presidency. Will Romney consider himself to be the agent of the American people? Or will he consider people like Sheldon Adelson, who pledged to contribute $100 million to get him elected, and the Koch brothers to be among his primary investors? Once you determine whom his primary investors are, you have to wonder what their goals are. Will they recommend that Romney invest in schools, roads, bridges and programs that will benefit all citizens? Or with they suggest that Romney pay more attention to issues that really matter to them? Continued tax breaks, tilting the free market system to eliminate their competition, reducing regulations to allow business to increase profits by polluting the air and water?

If you did not give $100 million to the Romney campaign, then you are probably not going to be given the same attention as those that did. The issues you care about will likely languish while the very wealthy become wealthier still. Banks may go back to over-leveraging themselves at a ratio of 40 : 1, risking the greater economy. Then they'll take their profits offshore so they don't have to pay taxes to the US government that has given them much of their wealth since 2008. Yes, after the bailouts, your tax dollars went to make those banks wealthier through the Fed's "discount window". And we're still bailing out the banks through quantitative easing measures. And Romney himself has profited greatly from government bailouts.

As I see it, this election is really about which person will, as President, will best serve the entire country rather than cater to special interests. I hope that some of the information in this article will help to fill in the gaps of information that will help people to make a more-informed decision.

~R. Charan Pagan
information systems technologist, musician, writer, filmmaker
Los Angeles, CA 90017
http://www.reclaimingourbirthright.blogspot.com/

The Political Woes of a Superficial Society

Do we all realize that we are about to, again, go and vote for the person who hired the best PR firm to manage their campaign? You know, your candidate wasn't standing up on a stage in Iowa with his sleeves rolled up because he was hot or because he felt the look suited his fashion sense. He did it because his image consultant thought the look would go over better with blue collar workers and might boost him a couple of points higher in the polls.

I'm not just talking about our presidential candidates here. It can be said all of them at the federal level, as far as I can tell.

We don't vote for real people, we vote for avatars. What happens when a real person attempts to enter an important race? We're told that they're untrustworthy, dangerous and suspicious. They're outspent in the PR department and they're never given any serious attention. I think candidates like Ross Perot, Ron Paul and Ralph Nader would govern the country in a way that would better appeal to the vast majority of the country but those currently in power tell us not to do what's in our best interest. They assure us that their brand of untrustworthy-ness, dangerous-ness and suspicious-ness is better for us.

The media is partly to blame for this but so are we all. We somehow became a country that wanted to choose our president based on the whom we would most like to have a beer with. Personally, I don't want to know all the fuzzy details about a candidate. I may want to know how their childhood and school life may have affected their world view but I don't care in what region they went to school or what their first grade teacher's name was. That person is there to do a job, and my job--OUR JOB--is to make sure that they do it well. That means we need to look past all the superficial crap and view the issues, the facts and the data honestly and objectively. Somehow I feel that most of the country must be failing at this task.

Some people believe that Obama is a Muslim with no evidence of it and others don't believe that a Mormon is capable or qualified to run the country.

Can't we examine their records with a bit more scrutiny and more lucid analysis? They won't do it in most of the news media. Most of the news organizations are doing fine just the way things are. They make billions off the political ads the ratings spikes amid the hysteria of an impending election. This is a responsibility that we must take on ourselves.

Several years ago I got an e-mail from someone essentially praising the Republican Party for having the more attractive women. Photographed were Michele Bachman, Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin (I think) opposing Hillary Clinton, Janet Reno and Madeline Albright (as best I can recall). A similar youtube video seems to also have been created. Only in the world of politics could any of those women be considered attractive but I found the e-mail amusing because in my experience it has rarely been the case that the more attractive people I've known were the most intelligent or most well-informed.

But MSNBC seems to have gotten the same e-mail. Because, fast-forward to present day and you can turn on the news station and see some remarkably hot women all feisty and snarky and espousing progressive and liberal ideals. I don't know their names but there are a few. From what I have seen, the Republicans have not kept up in the hotness department. But does it really matter? Are we again going to be swayed by the ideals of the person or group of people who produce the most physically attractive television personalities and candidates and hire the best image consultants for them?

Of course attractive people can have good ideas too. I'm not saying they can't. But it is pretty clear that those with handsome physical attributes often get the most attention. You can point to the hideous Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly, etc. but remember, they're rich. And money is a great equalizer in our society.

This is something that we can't fix with legislation or even with education, really. We each have to look past the images that are presented to us and form our opinions with just the facts. But you won't get those from the TV news. It's going to take a bit more effort to dig them up.

We've all heard the saying that we "reap what we sow." Take a look at what we've been sowing and take a look at what we've been reaping. Is it perhaps time to make a change?

~R. Charan Pagan
information systems technologist, musician, writer, filmmaker
Los Angeles, CA 90017
http://www.reclaimingourbirthright.blogspot.com/

Mitt is Militarily Challenged

It's time for an updated military strategy.

Let me get this straight: we have drone aircraft that we build for a few thousand dollars that can fly 50,000 feet in the air using solar power which costs nothing, target an enemy and obliterate them with a hail of gunfire and Mitt Romney wants to spend billions of dollars to build a bunch of metal boats to float around in the ocean, burn up diesel fuel, kill a bunch of fish and provide fun target objects for our future enemy drones? Yeah, why don't we go back to using muskets, because, by-golly that's how we did it in the good old days! This is frightening, people. How is it that this candidate has not been laughed out of contention for any military policy position? I hope this is all an elaborate practical joke!

~R. Charan Pagan
information systems technologist, musician, writer, filmmaker
Los Angeles, CA 90017
http://www.reclaimingourbirthright.blogspot.com/

More Socialism, Please!

Underachievers? ...Like the banks? If you are a casual follower of politics, you probably have heard that President Obama is a socialist. As a political junkie, this just didn't seem at all accurate to me. Of course, it is not accurate. It is what is called hyperbole--a claim based on some fact that is blown way out of proportion and used to sway voters that don’t follow every step of every political “player”. For instance, you may have heard that President Obama “socialized” the federal student loan program. I had heard this years ago and I decided to research the issue. What I found is that Obama stopped paying banks to give loans to students and instead restructured the program so that the government would give student loans directly, cutting out banks as the middlemen. Of course, the banking industry didn't like that. Apparently the Republican party didn't either, hence, it was labeled a "socialist" program. But can’t such a change only save the country money? How can it not cost less to make loans to students directly rather than have to pay the salaries and bonuses of bankers in exchange for them servicing the loans? A wikipedia.org article states: "By directly lending to students, the government is projected to save taxpayers $68 billion dollars over the next several years." You would think that would make Republicans, and all Americans happy. The only concern I have been able to uncover from critics of the change is that the banks were “assuming risk” that the US government will now have to assume. OK, that is a valid argument.  But does that make the new program socialism? I believe that any thinking person would have a difficult time accepting that assessment. Furthermore, if there was so much “risk” why would the banks be willing to service the loans? I have a hard time believing that they did it out of the goodness of their hearts, but rather believe they did it because it was lucrative for them to do it. So then, how could it not be more economical to cut them out of the equation? Most people in the country feel that higher education is important for Americans to achieve the American dream and for the country to continue to prosper. That being the case, politicians will always pretend to care about and promote programs that keep student aid available. When interest rates are high, students are not able to pay the interest fees. To keep higher education affordable, the federal government used to pay banks the difference between the high interest rate and a modest rate that students can actually afford to pay. This was an issue during the 2004 presidential election. Interest rates had fallen dramatically yet the federal government was still paying banks the high interest rate. It was a great deal for the banks. Not so much for the US taxpayer and was no benefit at all to students. So if people want to call common sense, cost-saving measures “socialism”, then maybe we should reexamine our fear of socialism. Or at least re-calibrate our BS sensors to recognize political hyperbole. If Republicans have a better plan for student loans, then show us the plan. Explain why it is better. Resorting to such ridiculous rhetoric indicates a weak political position, poor judgment and dishonest manipulation of facts, voters and the system. When politics reaches this low point, the country is in serious trouble. ~R. Charan Pagan information systems technologist, musician, writer, filmmaker Los Angeles, CA 90017 http://www.reclaimingourbirthright.blogspot.com/

News Advice from a Political Nerd

Who Supplies Your News?

My Fellow Americans, we have a choice. I'm not talking about the elections, those are pretty much a sham. But the choice we make about where we get our information is critically important.

Most of us turn to mainstream media news for the bulk of our information. To news that is sponsored by politicians, oil companies, pharmaceutical companies, etc., rather than getting news from organizations that investigate those people. Considering that these are some of the least credible and sleaziest people on the planet, how can anyone trust the news that is "brought to you by..." them?

Is that new miracle drug safe? Well, we're going to be talking to the CEO of Merck who's going to tell us all about it!

Are hydraulic fracturing techniques and hydrocarbons harming your health? We'll be speaking with executives from Chevron and Exxon/Mobile to get their opinion.

Good luck with that!

Do you remember when journalists used to investigate? It wasn't that long ago. But the mainstream news organizations realized that investigations cost a lot of money. It's a lot cheaper to hire a television personality to just sit in a chair and yell into the camera.

Greg Palast is an investigative reporter that actually conducts investigations, stakeouts and undercover work. And the information he uncovers is often very different that what shows up in the mainstream media news. One of Palast's investigations revealed that in 2008, BP had an oil platform blowout that was nearly identical to the Deepwater Horizon blowout. It occurred while drilling off the coast of Azerbijan. BP kept the disaster a secret so that they could get a contract to drill in the Gulf of Mexico. We know now how that turned out. BP didn't learn from their previous failure and continued to cut corners on safety (apparently under the advice of consultants at Bain Capital.)

When Deepwater Horizon blew, all of the mainstream media news personalities went to the Gulf Coast to get sound bites, to get the "news" directly from the people that caused the disaster and to get their photo ops with pelicans and otters covered in black goo. Palast went there to investigate and got a different story: BP got the contract to drill in the Gulf with promises that they would have clean-up boats and crews on hand to respond to a spill within hours, not days, of a spill. Ever the spendthrifts, BP saved money by not keeping the boats and crews on the ready. Eleven people lost their lives, thousands suffered losses to their livlihoods.

[Greg Palast is the author of The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, Armed Madhouse, Vultures' Picnic and Billionaires and Ballot Bandits.]

Amy Goodman is an author and host of the daily news show Democracy Now! She is a true journalist and someone that understands what that word means. Democracy Now! is one of the few news programs in this country that has no advertisers, no corporate sponsors and takes no money from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). The show is 100% independent and financed by its listeners and viewers. The programming is superb.

Amy conducted what should be a famous interview with President Bill Clinton on the eve of the 2000 election. In that interview she challenged and attacked Clinton repeatedly. Most reporters do not ask such touch questions of politicians and instead often give politicians the platform to promote themselves, their party and their objectives. While it makes for poor journalism, news organizations know that if they are kind to politicians, they may get that big exclusive interview when a hot news story breaks. And they make great revenue from campaign ads. If you haven't paid a few million dollars for some campaign ads, do you think they'll be more concerned with serving your needs as a news consumer or the needs of an advertising consumer that did? And will again? We would all like to think that the man in the suit, sitting at the anchor desk is going to tell us everything that we need to know. But when you consider that there are billions of dollars at stake, can you be confident that television ratings and ad revenue won't trump journalistic integrity and the public's right to know?

[Amy Goodman is the author of The Exception to the Rulers, Static, Standing Up to the Madness, Breaking the Sound Barrier and The Silenced Majority.]

Bill Moyers is the host of Moyers & Company on PBS. His show is not always political but it is always informative and some of the guests on his show are some of the most rational, knowledgeable, insightful and intelligent people I've seen on television. Two of my favorites are Mickey Edwards and Kathleen Hall Jameson.

To The Point (Public Radio International) is probably my favorite news program. The host, Warren Olney, takes on the two or three most important issues of the day and brings in the most knowledgeable and reliable experts to debate each side. An entire hour--with no commercial interruptions--devoted to rational debate over the nation's most important issues. Is there any better way to approach an issue?

I'm not saying that people need to give up their CNN, Fox News and MSNBC entirely but--if you're a news junkie and a nerd like me--consider whether you will be more informed by hearing many different voices and points of view. Or whether hearing one voice and excluding all others will give you the broadest perspective.

~R. Charan Pagan
information systems technologist, musician, writer, filmmaker
Los Angeles, CA 90017
http://www.reclaimingourbirthright.blogspot.com/

Union Labor and the Battle for the Union

[The following is a bit of a retro piece but I feel that is serves as a good example of how things are blown out of proportion by political operatives in the Democratic and Republican Parties and in the media. Also, Labor Day is approaching which seems like a good time to discuss labor issues.]

The Scott Walker recall is another one of those issues that just begs a response because the rhetoric has gotten so extreme and silly. Is this really the epic battle of a free America vs. socialism? Is it the last stand of the common man, the worker vs. fascism? Let’s examine it:

Has anyone considered that this argument, this battle needs to be constant? Honestly, how does either side win? The government beats the union workers and forces them to work for peanuts and no health care or retirement benefits? Or the union workers win and get a 25 hour work week with full benefits and an extremely generous salary? What would either scenario mean for the greater economy?

Government jobs are supposed to be low wage jobs. They need to be. A government does not run effectively unless it is run efficiently. Once people's wages rise too high, we are all overly-burdened by the cost. There are a lot of government employees that are not in unions and they are not complaining about their pay and benefits. That's because they are well compensated for their work. These are politicians, scientists, judges, high level federal law enforcement personnel, etc. You see, if you want a big salary and nice benefits, you need to try to become one of those people. The educated, the invaluable and those that work risky jobs or jobs that require their attention 24/7. Driving a street-sweeper isn’t very risky and doesn't require much of an education. Most anybody can do it. Therefore the person hired to do that job should be compensated as such.

The flip side is that you can't just hire Hillbilly Harold to be a crossing guard if he's going to stare at the young girls and creep them out when they walk past and try to rub up against them when they're waiting for the light to change. You'd better be damn sure that whomever you hire for a rock bottom salary with limited benefits won't conduct themselves in a way that opens up the city, state or federal government up to liabilities, PR nightmares or other black eyes. After all, in order for the government to run efficiently, it has to run effectively.

Also, it takes time to train a new person, does it not? Even simple jobs have many nuances. In my street-sweeper driver example, what are the routes a driver must learn? What are the procedures? What does s/he do if there's a car in the way? What does that switch next to the fuel gauge do? At a point it is economically beneficial to pay a person enough that they won’t want to leave for quite some time. This balance is the free market at work.

So here's how I bridge the gap: we need to pay people enough to attract employees that will conduct themselves appropriately as they carry out their duties. They need to be paid enough that we can attract people who will be good representatives of our cities, states and of our country. The jobs need to pay enough that we can attract people who will be good stewards of our government resources (our vehicles, equipment, tools, funds, other employees and citizens). I think we may need to give up the idea of collective bargaining for government workers in favor of contractually-mandated bargaining power for each individual. Otherwise, the worst worker gets the same pay and benefits of the best workers. I believe that this is another area where we need to re-think things fundamentally to come up with a better system.

So people, this issue is a fight that we are always going to have. We must continually seek to find the correct balance of how much of a salary we should pay someone so that the government is running at its most efficient and most effective. It's not about which people want to destroy the country by suckling off the government teat vs. the people that want to suppress everybody they can to take all of the money for themselves. This is about hiring people we can trust to do the government's work and allow them to live a life of dignity for doing those necessary jobs. Why are people acting like you need to crush the other side to save the country? What's the point? The argument will never be won and just go away. It is the constant tug-of-war that is the political process.

If you're so passionate about it, form a citizen review board to evaluate the compensation of people in your community. Then pressure the government so that your findings will have influence. If you don't get the political influence you believe you deserve then shine the light on the politicians, get media attention and get others to vote people out. Otherwise what you have is politicians on the left catering to unions and politicians on the right trying to destroy them. And they want you to act as their minions to help them do something that will ultimately harm the country. Why play that game?

~R. Charan Pagan
information systems technologist, musician, writer, filmmaker
Los Angeles, CA 90017
http://www.reclaimingourbirthright.blogspot.com/

Ease Up On the Propaganda, Dude!

If you are paying attention, you probably heard that GE earned over $10 billion in profit yet paid no Federal taxes in 2010 and actually got a tax benefit from Uncle Sam. That turned out not to be wholly true but GE has heavily invested in lobbying the federal government and usually pays a tax rate of about 7% whereas many other businesses may pay as much as 40%. This is pretty outrageous but even more so when you consider that GE has moved thousands of US jobs overseas. It doesn't seem like a company that deserves (or needs) a giant tax break to me. So I get a little put off when I see GE's advertising campaign that seems to serve as a PR (public relations) initiative. One ad talks about how the medical devices that GE makes have helped people diagnose and/or treat their cancer. It's a feel-good commercial for sure. It tugs at your heartstrings and makes you feel good about how this company helped to save the lives of people. The commercial makes GE sound much more like a company that deserves a big tax break from the federal government. But what if there was a smaller company out there that is working on a better machine? A machine that is more accurate, more convenient and more cost-effective? This company is hypothetical as far as I know but such a company would not be able to afford to compete with GE for special favors from Uncle Sam. Therefore, their better machine would not be available for anyone.



Are you convinced that you're getting a fair share?

This is the danger of having a plutocracy- a country where very wealthy are able to buy what they want from government at the expense of the general public. This is the reason that everyone should demand fairness in the tax code and the electoral and legislative processes.

Another disturbing piece of propaganda comes from Chevron. Their TV ad mentions that they donate money to schools to teach kids science. Great! Such donations rarely come without strings attached. And I certainly have to wonder if the stings attached to this deal will be tied at the other end to textbooks that have no mention to the environmental damage related to fossil fuel energy. I know for sure that letting companies that deny the science of climate change shouldn't be teaching science to our kids.

You almost have to admire what seems to me to be a well thought-out strategy: industries pushes for tax breaks and offshore their profits so that the government goes broke. And when government can't afford to educate our kids or provide health care to our citizens, well here comes big business to lend a helping hand! Do you think these businesses will be too important to fail when we are dependent upon them for education funding and cancer detection and research?

So industry and the wealthy appear to be well-organized to ensure that their interests are served by government and that their propaganda is disseminated to convince us of the benevolence of the whole situation. What do you think will happen if we are not also organized? Do you think we may get steamrolled, bamboozled and taken advantage of? You really don't need to wonder. Our public schools are bankrupt and under-funded while corporations reap record profits and pay record low taxes on that wealth. Most of the wealth in the country has gone to the top .01% while the wages for the rest of us have stayed flat (when adjusted for inflation) since the 1970's. Has there really not been a single US worker that contributed to that explosion of new wealth? Shouldn't those who helped to create that wealth also get a small piece of it? Apparently not, under our current system.

How did this happen? How did our government and our political system stop serving us in favor of serving the wealthy few? After all, we have the power to vote to hire and fire these politicians. When corporations are considered "people" and money is considered "speech" politicians are going to turn to the "people" that have the most to "say". I won't try to claim that every politician is a greedy, corrupt person but every singe one of them depends on campaign contributions to get re-elected. Do you have a few million bucks you can contribute to a political campaign? If not, your representative will be talking to George Clooney, Foster Friese, Susan Serandon and the Koch brothers instead.

Some of the wealthy people that have the privilege of having great influence over the government may be less self-serving than others but the mere fact that you can't talk to a politician today unless you are a millionaire, and probably won't be able to have any serious influence unless you are a billionaire, should be disturbing and infuriating to all of us. Do you accept being marginalized in your own country so that a privileged few can steer our country in a direction that serves their interests and/or ideology?

I strongly believe that our only chance to recover control of our government is for us to stand together and demand changes. Together we are bigger and stronger and more influential than the industries, the celebrities, the corporations and the media. I know that political pundits have often said that those people who are politically to the left or right of you are "loonies", "pinheads" and "brainwashed fools". But don't we all want the same basic things from our government and our country? Justice, fairness and a comfortable lifestyle with a shot at earning great success and wealth? A government that is more efficient, more effective and more accountable to us? Can we work together to achieve those things or shall we continue to fight with one another over disagreements? How successful has that been so far? If we work together we can achieve the things we all want. When we fight with each other we have to accept what the politicians give us.

In the past several years upward mobility has slowed to a crawl. Few people in the lower class ever move up to the middle class. And few in the middle class ever move into the upper class. When we go into full reversal and only the very wealthy maintain or advance their financial positions and the rest of us slide backward, will you then be motivated to change things? Will you have finally had enough? Will it be too late to change things? Our time is now. Our birthright--a country of our own--is at stake. Are we Americans or are we merely shadows of our brave and ambitious forefathers?

~R. Charan Pagan
information systems technologist, musician, writer, filmmaker
Los Angeles, CA 90017
http://www.reclaimingourbirthright.blogspot.com/