Capitalism, The Best Solution to Poverty

[Scot Dutchy]

A review on a book about the famous brothers of the 1%. Just frightening that these people exist.

Kochland review: how the Kochs bought America – and trashed it

Christopher Leonard has produced a relentless accounting of the brothers grim which somehow concludes with sympathy

If the unbridled consumption of fossil fuels is indeed pushing the planet faster and faster toward Armageddon, Charles Koch probably deserves as much credit as anyone for the end of the world as we know it.

Christopher Leonard never makes that judgement in Kochland, his massive study of one of the most destructive corporate behemoths America has ever seen. But in more than 600 pages, he provides plenty of evidence to support it.

Charles and his late brother David were second-generation extremists. Their father, Fred, was not only one of the founders of the John Birch Society, which famously accused President Eisenhower of being a “tool of the communists”. He also helped the Nazis construct their third-largest oil refinery, which produced fuel for the Luftwaffe – although you would have to read Jane Mayer’s brilliant book, Dark Money, to learn that particular detail.

In 1980, David Koch was the Libertarian candidate for vice-president. The party’s modest plans included the abolition of “Medicare, Medicaid, social security (which would be made voluntary), the Department of Transportation, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission.”

“The party,” Leonard writes, “also sought to privatize all roads and highways, to privatize all schools, to privatize all mail delivery” and, eventually, the “repeal of all taxation”.

[Brian Peacock]

I blame their parents.

[Scot Dutchy]

A great example of course:

Their father, Fred, was not only one of the founders of the John Birch Society, which famously accused President Eisenhower of being a “tool of the communists”. He also helped the Nazis construct their third-largest oil refinery, which produced fuel for the Luftwaffe

[Brian Peacock]

I blame their grandparents too.

[Seabass]

Jane Mayer’s brilliant book, Dark Money

I read that one. The Kochs are sooo much worse than most people realize. The damage that they and their whole network of right-wing, billionaire "philanthropists" have done to the country and the world is incalculable.

[Scot Dutchy]

And still doing.

[Brian Peacock]

Now here's a thing. The WTO appeals court, the body that resolves international trade disputes with binding judgements, has shut down today. Over the last few years the Trump administration has blocked the approval of the appointment of 4 of the 7 seats on the court as the terms of participants came to a close. Two seats on the court became vacant today, and with no replacements approved, and with the court needing 3 judges to form a judgement and issue a ruling, the international system which stops countries ignoring treatise and negotiated trade agreements has basically ceased to exist.

https://time.com/5746978/wto-appeals-court/

[Sean Hayden]

Without it we're back to "the law of the jungle". --gawd, to be so naive again!




--//--

American trash

How an e-waste sting uncovered a shocking betrayal

Total Reclaim had sold the LCD monitors to a third-party shipping company, which then sent them overseas. Stratton and prosecutors pulled documents from that company, along with Total Reclaim, and pored over it all.

Eventually, he found a damning discrepancy. Shipping manifests from Total Reclaim, which had been turned over to BAN, showed the company sending “plastic mix” overseas. But the third-party shipping company had the same documents with a different item listed: flat screens. The documents had been falsified. As investigators dug deeper, Stratton says, they uncovered emails from Total Reclaim instructing the shipping company to fake its records.

“I started doing some comparison work and realized that this was a much bigger, much longer conspiracy than the state even knew about,” Stratton says. Ultimately, investigators pieced together a plan of staggering scope. According to officials, Total Reclaim sent more than 8 million pounds of flat screen monitors with mercury to Hong Kong, where, according to an EPA toxicologist report, workers were at risk of being poisoned. In the process, Lorch and Zirkle made millions of dollars, and to keep it from authorities, they stored the monitors in the Harbor Island facility, falsifying hundreds of documents to cover it all up. (Lawyers for the men dispute the amount of money made from the fraud.)

https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/4/2099 ... laim-fraud

[Brian Peacock]

That's a weird defence - the crime isn't to be judged on the intent to mislead or the scale of the deception but on the amount of money they got away with. "This is only a small crime really."

[Hermit]

That's a weird defence - the crime isn't to be judged on the intent to mislead or the scale of the deception but on the amount of money they got away with. "This is only a small crime really."

Crime is judged on the basis of whether it's whie collar or blue collar crime everywhere, but particularly so in the USA.

[JimC]

Perhaps US cops get a bonus depending on how many rounds they fire...

[Svartalf]

Yeah, the more I see, the more I think they get paid by how many dead they leave in their wake, no matter guilty or not... I have zero respect for French police, but if that were possible, my esteem for US cops would be far into the negative (seriously tinged with fear should I cross one, he might kill me for the capital crime of traipsing while bearded)

[Tero]

( a solution to..middle class status)
According to the report, in the 1970s, 94% of 30-year-olds earned more than their parents did at that age, as opposed to 2010, when only 50% of 30-year-olds earned more than their parents. In 2016, the median net worth (assets minus debt) of millennials between ages 25-34 was 36% lower than it was for Gen X'ers at that age; just $20,038, compared with $31,240 for Gen X'ers. The report goes on to highlight the unique factors that have led to this change: a decrease in homeownership and an increase in student loan debt.

About 43% of millennials between ages 25-34 own homes, compared with 51% of Gen X'ers and 49% of baby boomers at that age. Given the significant role that homeownership plays in the accumulation of wealth, this has contributed to the declining net worth of this generation.
https://www.teenvogue.com/story/bernie- ... -standards

[Brian Peacock]

Something like 80% of the UK workforce have only the same buying power as they did 40 years ago, wage stagnation has seen wages fall in real terms and in relative terms to levels lower than during the Napoleonic wars, household and business debt in the UK is c.300% of GDP, and, most telling of all, the % of GDP going to the workforce has been steadily declining since the 1980s, taking a sharp dive since 2007/08, whereas the % of GDP contributing to asset growth has been steadily rising, taking a sharp hike since 2007/08. This demonstrates that we're actually operating a "trickle up" economy - and that trickle is fast becoming a torrent.

Capitalism: making you poorer, desperate and depressed since 1762.

[rainbow]

It shouldn’t be this rare to see a film in 2019 imploring us to bear witness to crimes committed by a hugely powerful, and profitable, corporation, one that’s named and shamed repeatedly throughout, but it still feels like an outlier, belonging more in the 70s than it does now. It’s this focused rage that propels it forward, giving it a vitality that’s often missing from the direction, a strange choice for director Todd Haynes whose films are typically known for their queerness and vibrancy.


Here he’s a steady, if anonymous, pair of hands, telling a story based on a shocking New York Times long read about dogged, modest corporate lawyer Rob Bilott (Mark Ruffalo) who’s confronted with a game-changing case. Working for a high-profile law firm, acting on behalf of major chemical clients, he finds himself reminded of his humble beginnings when a farmer from his home town of Parkersburg enters his slick office. His farm is dying, or more specifically his cows are, 190 of them to date, and he’s convinced that it’s a result of drinking water infected by a neighbouring factory owned by DuPont, one of the world’s largest chemical companies. Bilott is initially reluctant to take on a personal case, given his firm’s focus on corporate clients, but he finds the evidence undeniable and the further he digs, the bigger the case becomes.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/n ... ging-drama