On 4/17/2010 4:11 PM, F. George McDuffee wrote:
On Sat, 17 Apr 2010 10:57:44 -0700, Hawke
wrote:
Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell met with hedge fund managers last
week to work out a deal where they would give the republicans big
donations and in return the republicans would stop any reforms of the
banking industry.
It was announced later in the week that all 41 republican senators would
oppose the banking reform bill and would filibuster to stop it.
So there you have it. What is wrong with America. Wealthy corporate
interests are able to tell the congress what they want and they get it,
and venal congressmen, republicans in this case, are willing to do
anything they are paid to do. So much for our "democracy".
Hawke
============
Most unfortunately this does not appear to be solely due to the
elected personalities/individuals, because if it were, a
replacement of a simple majority would "fix" the problem, i.e.
"throw the bums out."
Rather the entire system/structure of government is becoming
increasingly dysfunctional, which is not surprising, given the
extraordinarily intensive, extensive and rapid changes in the
domestic U.S. economy [globalization/deindustrialization] and
U.S. society/culture with minimal changes in the form, structure
and operation of government at all levels.
What was designed/developed for the governance of rural and small
town population has apparently reached it's limits of its
evolution or adaptability with the rise of a multi-cultural,
tetra-urban, polyglot, trans-national majority population.
The regulatory agencies are exhibiting the same inconsistent
behavior.
http://www.marke****ch.com/story/gol...k=MW_news_stmp
April 17, 2010, 5:14 p.m. EDT
Goldman warned of SEC suit 9 months ago: report
Investment bank could be exposed to a raft of private lawsuits
By Alistair Barr, Marke****ch
SAN FRANCISCO (Marke****ch) -- Goldman Sachs Group Inc. was
warned nine months ago that Securities and Exchange Commission
staff wanted to bring a civil case against it, but the investment
bank didn't specifically disclose this to investors in regulatory
filings, Bloomberg News reported Saturday, citing unidentified
people it credited with direct knowledge of the communications.
snip
FWIW -- it appears that even if Goldman Sachs is put out of
business, their executives sentenced long prison terms, with
massive disgorgement of personal wealth, nothing will change
because the system that allowed/encouraged Goldman Sachs and many
other financial firms to flourish at the expense of the people
was not changed. When you always do what you've always done,
you'll always get what you always got. To paraphrase Winston
Churchill when he was First Lord of the Admiralty, about the
possibility of a successful surprise attack by the Imperial
German navy, "The goal of the Royal Navy is not to see they won't
do it, the goal of the Royal Navy is to see they *CAN'T* do it."
The simple answer to this clear cut corruption of the government is to
switch to a publicly financed election system. The funds the people in
congress get from these large corporations are almost exclusively in the
form of campaign contributions. You have to take the money out of the
equation. As long as they can get away with funneling money to the
politicians the system will remain one that is bought and paid for by
the special interests. Step one is to get that money out of the system.
The only way to do that is to publicly finance our elections. Until that
happens everything still remains the same. The question is will we ever
be able to eliminate the corrupt private financing of elections. Until
elections are funded by the public no other improvements can hope to
happen. Funny isn't it that you hear about going to the public financing
so infrequently? Do you think that's because both the members of
congress and the people with the money really, really, do like it just
the way it is now? Since they like it so much why does the public
continue to let them have it their way?
Hawke