Corporate and Political Greed – Tearing us apart

In the movie ‘Wall Street’ the lead character Gordon Gekko, a corporate raider preached that “Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right; greed works.”

Isn’t it the ‘greed’ of a few in all it’s forms that is tearing us apart?

“Greed has produced rash tax cuts that have given money to the rich and in effect taken it away from the poor….Greed accounts for the efforts to take profitability out of the pensions and health insurance of working men and women. Greed is responsible for the fact that so many Americans have no health insurance and the fact that the recent reform of Medicare was a fraud.”

“The 20 highest-paid CEOs of U.S. public companies were paid an average of $36.4 million last year, three times more than the 20 highest-paid European CEOs, 38 times more than the 20 highest-paid leaders at U.S. nonprofit organizations and 204 times more than the 20 highest-paid generals in the U.S. military.”

“Stanley O’Neal’s departure from Merrill Lynch with “no severance” and no 2007 bonus would seem to present a picture of a decisive board in control. Yet, when “no severance” equals $161.5 million and an office and executive assistant for three years, what else did they think they needed to give him?”

When CEOs like Lee Raymond from ExxonMobil receive severance payouts of US$351,000,000 and Henry McKinnell of Pfizer receives US$213,000,000 and Robert Nardelli of Home Depot takes home US$210,000,000 greed has obviously gone to a whole new ridiculous level. McKinnell and Nardelli received these outsized severance packages of more than $200 million each, despite poor stock performance during their tenures.

I remember well the screaming match I had with a wealthy man from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania about six years ago as he was telling me that as far as the corporation was concerned, all that mattered was the bottom line – the profits. Now this former corporate Titan complains that the company he helped build and later sold for an enormous amount of money has closed down and moved all their operations to China.

“But my son used to work for them before he got laid off!” He whines… Clearly the ‘bottom line’ is not all that matters to him now.

“Today Americans are losing jobs for reasons that have nothing to do with recession. They are losing their jobs to offshoring and to foreigners brought in on work visas. Today many American brands are produced offshore in whole or part with foreign labor and imported to the US for sale in the American market. In 2007, prior to the onset of the 2008 recession, 217,000 manufacturing jobs were lost. The US now has fewer manufacturing jobs than it had in 1950 when the population was half the current size.”

It’s baffling how many people naively believe that the corporate powers that be who regularly lie about ‘corporate integrity,’ ‘values’ and ‘philosophy’ care about their employees and their families… But their actions speak louder than words and clearly we are not equal.

Countrywide Financial is “America’s #1 Home Loan Lender” and in their full page article published on 20th January 2008 in La Nacion here in Costa Rica their headline states that: “Decide where you want to go in life and get there with countrywide.”

Well folks, Countrywide Financial has clearly decided to come to Costa Rica and as you can see from their advertisement, they boast that: “No One Can Do What Countrywide Can.” I say that “no one can” compete with them in the US with US employees when Countrywide Financial is hiring “Costa Rica’s most energetic professionals” at a fraction of the cost of what they would have to pay employees in the USA.

While Countrywide is hiring in Costa Rica they are laying off 10,000+ workers in the USA following the US mortgage meltdown. In the last year Countrywide Financial stock price has gone from $40.00 – $6.00 Angelo Mozilo collected over $285 million in the last 11 years as CEO. Yep! “No One Can Do What Countrywide Can?”

Want to know how many more companies have been moving offshore? How many other companies are not paying what they should be paying?

1. “Enron’s use of offshore shells was essential to its fraud. It had almost 3,000 corporate subsidiaries and partnerships, a fourth of them registered offshore…”
2. “Tyco International CEO L. Dennis Kozlowski moved the company’s registration to Bermuda, then went on to set up 115 subsidiaries in tax haven countries, including eight in the Bahamas, 17 in Barbados, 55 in Bermuda, and five in the Cayman Islands…. Tyco’s former top executives were charged with looting the company of $600 million.”
3. “… the collapse of the (Worldcom) company cost shareholders about $180 billion; this includes state pension funds –New York State lost $300 million, Michigan lost $116 million, and Florida $85-90 million. And 20,000 workers lost their jobs.”
4. Last year: “Merck, the pharmaceutical multinational, announced that it will pay 2.3 billion dollars in back taxes, interest and penalties in one of the largest settlements for tax evasion the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has ever imposed.”

The fact is that wealthy people are not in the same boat as you and I, they’re not even in the same water! While you work more hours than ever to pay the bills and watch your standard of living decline because the US dollar is worth less than it has in a very long time, their monthly statements show their internationally diversified, multi-currency, fully hedged investment portfolios increase in value for the very same reason that you are losing money.

They don’t care which way the market goes as long as they make money and most of them don’t have time to care whether you make money or not… They are doing what’s best for them and their families and have the capital and the best professional resources to achieve their goals.

And the ultra greedy ruthless bastards wouldn’t dream of living where you live so they don’t give a damn if your entire neighborhood was built on top of their toxic waste dump with 21,000 tons of buried chemical waste where your babies are born deformed as long as they don’t get sued.

In was a year when three of Wall Street’s largest firms suffered their worst quarterly losses in history and shareholders lost over $80 billion, and while “they are eliminating at least 6,200 jobs amid mounting losses from the subprime mortgage mess” Wall Street’s five biggest firms are paying a record $39 billion in bonuses for 2007.

Meanwhile “The latest report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the real wages and salaries of US civilian workers are below those of 5 years ago. It could not be otherwise with US corporations offshoring good jobs in order to reduce labor costs and, thereby, to convert wages once paid to Americans into multi-million dollar bonuses paid to CEOs and other top management.”

“The situation is getting worse. According to Sullivan, U.S. Commerce Department data show that U.S. companies increased the profits assigned to 18 tax havens by 68 percent, from 88 billion dollars in 1999 to 149 billion dollars in 2002. He said the increase in offshore profits was not related to increased economic activity and that, “subsidiaries of U.S. corporations now generate profits mainly in tax havens rather than in locations in which they conduct most of their business.”

And what happens to the infrastructure in the USA when these companies are not paying the billions of dollars in taxes that they should be paying “in locations in which they conduct most of their business”?

What happens when Defense-related spending for fiscal 2008 will exceed $1 trillion for the first time in history.”

“…in our devotion to militarism (despite our limited resources), we are failing to invest in our social infrastructure and other requirements for the long-term health of our country. These are what economists call “opportunity costs,” things not done because we spent our money on something else. Our public education system has deteriorated alarmingly. We have failed to provide health care to all our citizens and neglected our responsibilities as the world’s number one polluter. Most important, we have lost our competitiveness as a manufacturer for civilian needs — an infinitely more efficient use of scarce resources than arms manufacturing. ”

But when Bill Gates, one of the world’s richest men says that: “We have to find a way to make the aspects of capitalism that serve wealthier people serve poorer people as well…” and Google plans to give away a billion dollars focusing “climate crisis, global public heath, and global poverty” maybe there is hope that our attitudes will change one day… Before it’s too late.

Lying, Greedy Politicians:

It’s also fascinating how many people naively believe that the political powers that be who laughably preach about democracy and freedom, actually care about us and our welfare when in fact they don’t give a hoot about us. If they did, would they really be doing what they are doing? Here’s a slap in the face for you:

In a study, released on Tuesday by the Center for Public Integrity and its affiliated group, the Fund for Independence in Journalism: “Bush and seven top officials — including Vice President Dick Cheney, former Secretary of State Colin Powell and then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice — made 935 false statements about Iraq during those two years.”

Perhaps someone can explain the subtle difference between “false statements” and ‘barefaced lies’ to me?

Colin Powell had the second-highest number of “false statements”, with 244 about weapons and 10 about Iraq and al Qaeda. Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Press Secretary Ari Fleischer each made 109 false statements. “It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to al Qaeda,” the report reads.

Anyone with a brain has to know that most politicians have been lying to us about practically everything so why on earth do we think that all of a sudden they have started telling us the truth about stimulating the economy or the supposed Iranian threat?

These people are not mistaken, they are not working with faulty intelligence, they are deliberately lying and deceiving us, and as usual it’s our sons and daughters in the armed forces that pay the ultimate sacrifice not theirs.

Talking about armed forces, some might think Dick Cheney’s five deferments is cowardly but if that’s the case, what should we think about John Ashcrofts’ his seven deferments? Ashcroft then has the audacity to publicly state that: “I would have served if asked.”

Hold on a moment while I try and stop myself laughing.

And there’s our dear brave Commander in Chief, who stated nearly five years ago that “combat operations in Iraq have ended.” This from a guy that saw no action of any kind while 350 of our young men – real heroes – were dying each week in Vietnam and while he was technically AWOL from the National Guard from 1972 – 1973.

In his autobiography, Colin Powell writes: “I am angry that so many of the sons of the powerful and well-placed… managed to wangle slots in Reserve and National Guard units…Of the many tragedies of Vietnam, this raw class discrimination strikes me as the most damaging to the ideal that all Americans are created equal and owe equal allegiance to their country.”

“Two years ago, the U.S. Congress pressured the Arab emirate of Dubai to back out of a deal to manage U.S. ports. Today, governments in the Persian Gulf, China and Singapore have snapped up $37 billion of stakes in Wall Street, the bedrock of the U.S. financial system. Lawmakers and the White House are welcoming the cash, and there is hardly a peep from the public…. Also easing the way: The investments have been carefully designed to avoid triggering close U.S. government oversight.”

“We could be looking at the world’s largest tag sale if we continue to see declines in the dollar,” said Donald Klepper-Smith, chief economist for the New Haven firm DataCore Partners.

While Mayor Michael Bloomberg says: “We’re the ones on the front lines of the economy, and we’ve got a lot to be worried about: The stock market has already given up more than the entirety of the gains it made last year, in just three weeks. Housing starts in all our city are in average at a 16-year low.”

At a meeting in Davos, Switzerland, where a few puppet masters of the universe gather every year to chatter about how they’re doing in running our world, Condoleeza Rice – who once had a Chevron oil tanker named after her – says: “The U.S. economy is resilient, its structure is sound, and its long-term economic fundamentals are healthy…. Well, I can assure you that America has no permanent enemies.”

Do you really believe that the the US economy is “sound”?

Five years ago Ralph Nader wrote that: “We are witnessing the corporate destruction of capitalism in favor of a corporate state. The law can’t save it because the laws are controlled by politicians many of whom are controlled in turn by these same business interests and campaign cash.”

While the government spends a trillion dollars of our money – taxpayer’s money – on defense, these political whores and their corporate pimps are selling our companies and children’s future from underneath our feet.

Paul Craig Roberts who was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration sums it up nicely saying: “Our leaders in Washington are out to lunch. They have no idea of the real challenges our country faces and America’s dependence on foreign creditors… The outlook for the United States will continue to worsen as long as hegemonic superpower and free trade delusions prevail in Washington.”

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Written by Charlie McCormack* (edited by Scott Oliver) who is ex-Special Forces now happily ‘retired’ in Costa Rica. Charlie considers himself an “angry American” and uses a pen name because he says he would prefer not to end up in a Halliburton detention camp or be put in a “Free Speech Zone” when he travels back to the USA.

Please feel free to post your comments about this article in the Discussion Forum here.

Andrew Makarik

to@welovecostarica.com

Andrew Makarik is the main editor of WeLoveCostaRica, a fan of this sunny country. He is also a loving husband and a has a lovely daughter. By being a devoted family man and the biggest Costa Rica fan, he wants to make more people feel at home there. WeLoveCostaRica unites people and helps them find new home or a new travel destination. This website is a friendly community where everyone can find not only information, but also new friends and travel pals. Andrew is also passionate about IT and programming, so he himself maintains a friendly atmosphere in this cozy environment of WeLoveCostaRica.com.