Category Archives: Jobs

Some Of Michael’s Presidential Campaign Platform

Here are some concepts which I am proud to make part of my 2016 Presidential Campaign Platform. I will be expanding these and other topics as the Campaign progresses, so please check back often for updates. So please sit back, read and enjoy, and imagine the bright shining beacon on the hill that our great nation could be when we actually accomplish all of these things.

End Gerrymandering – US House and State Assemblies’ districts should be independently redrawn to follow County or Municipal boundaries where possible, and otherwise be as square as possible while retaining equal numbers of eligible voters per district, following every US decadal census. We may need a US Constitutional Amendment to withstand a SCOTUS challenge, but federal legislation should suffice.

Build Out Green Infrastructure – Similar to the WPA and other 1930s agencies, we need to nationally create Sustainable Green Jobs by: rebuilding the electric grid to smart grid standards with built-in load balancing and storage, and incorporating all three national grid systems; rebuilding the federal and state highway systems to 20-year and bridges to 100-year lifetimes; replacing all nuclear plants with LFTR / Molten Salt Core Reactors; retrofitting commercial buildings with solar and light- and water-saving measures; using all coal stack outputs to create algal oil, and otherwise sequestering all major industrial carbon outputs; using the land in the Nellis / DOE Site to provide a massive area for solar panels whose energy would be added to the grid; developing wind, tidal and wave energy sources wherever possible; providing home solar and battery power for all residential owners interested; building out Gigabit Ethernet in all metropolitan areas, and incentivizing the broadband and telecom industries to provide the same service for all rural residents and businesses nationwide; plugging or eliminating methane leaks in fracking and other oil wells, and working to eliminate coal burning, mining, fracking and oil drilling altogether; recycling to an extent that we can nationally “close the loop” on all waste streams; and performing any other projects in the public interest as they should arise.

Return To Fair Trade – End NAFTA / CAFTA / WTO / GATT / TPP and all other free trade agreements and replace them with tariffs and Fair Trade policies which actually help workers in the US, and in developing countries; strengthen Unions in the US and internationally, while ending corruption in trade organizations; increase Primary and Secondary Public School Teacher Pay to three times the poverty level at lowest; and enforce commodity pricing structures to end price gouging for energy commodities like gasoline, heating oil and electric service.

Restrict Globalist Corporations – Require that all businesses engaging in sales to any US citizen from the US: be based in the US and pay taxes commensurate to the earnings of that business for its practices in the US; hire its final production workers from the pool of workers in the US; and where US hiring is unfeasible, pay a living wage to international workers and ensure Union standard working conditions in all international supply facilities.

Legalize And Tax Marijuana – Remove Cannabis, Hemp and all related plants and products from the DEA Drug Schedules (not on Schedule I nor II nor III nor IV nor V); promote the growth of Hemp and the manufacture, sale and export of Hemp-based products; create and enforce a federal taxation system for the growth, trade, manufacture and sale of cannabis and cannabis-based products; require the FDA to oversee safety of all inhalable and edible cannabis and cannabis-based products; and promote the use of cannabis and cannabis-based products over products based on either nicotine or alcohol.

End Homelessness – Require all homes which are on the market for more than one year be federally purchased at assessed value for use by those who are chronically homeless, at a zero starting rent to the new resident(s); encourage the building of housing to accommodate all resident groupings in the US; fit the homes as best as possible to match the needs of those who are in need (match homeless families to homes with an appropriate number of bedrooms and a yard; match homeless urban singles to apartments in city centers, etc.); allow for mental health counseling and evaluation for those in need or in want; seek to fit mentally and physically capable residents with appropriate Green Infrastructure Jobs; charge no more than 25% of residents’ incomes per unit as rent; allow lease terms for as long as the residents’ needs be present or until resident chooses to relocate; and assist in relocation where possible.

Reduce The Military Industrial Complex – Reduce the number of Aircraft Carrier Fleets from 11 to six; reduce dependence on private military contractors; require stringent standards relating to performance, carbon footprint, efficiency and ROI/cost for all private military contractors; and require that all branches of the US Armed Forces be carbon-neutral by 2020.

The following are portions of Bernie Sanders’ campaign platform with which I fully agree:

Income and wealth inequality: In the United States today we have the most unequal wealth and income distribution of any major country on earth — worse than at any time since the 1920s. This is an economy that must be changed in fundamental ways.

Jobs and income: In my view, we need a massive federal jobs program which puts millions of our people back to work. We must end our disastrous trade policies. We need to raise the minimum wage to a living wage. And we have to fight for pay equity for women.

Campaign finance reform: As a result of the Citizens United Supreme Court decision, American democracy is being undermined by the ability of the Koch brothers and other billionaire families. These wealthy contributors can literally buy politicians and elections by spending hundreds of millions of dollars in support of the candidates of their choice. We need to overturn Citizens United and move toward public funding of elections so that all candidates can run for office without being beholden to the wealthy and powerful.

Climate change: Climate change is real, caused by human activity and already devastating our nation and planet. The United States must lead the world in combating climate change and transforming our energy system away from fossil fuels and toward energy efficiency and sustainability.

College affordability: Every person in this country who has the desire and ability should be able to get all the education they need regardless of the income of their family. This is not a radical idea. In Germany, Scandinavia and many other countries, higher education is either free or very inexpensive. We must do the same.

Health care: Shamefully, the United States remains the only major country on earth that does not guarantee health care to all people. The United States must move toward a Medicare-for-all single-payer system. Health care is a right, not a privilege.

Poverty: The United States has more people living in poverty than at almost any time in the modern history of our country. I believe that in a democratic, civilized society none of our people should be hungry or living in desperation. We need to expand Social Security, not cut it. We need to increase funding for nutrition programs, not cut them.

Tax reform: We need real tax reform which makes the rich and profitable corporations begin to pay their fair share of taxes. We need a tax system which is fair and progressive. Children should not go hungry in this country while profitable corporations and the wealthy avoid their tax responsibilities by stashing their money in the Cayman Islands.

Thank you all for your support!
Michael Oatman
2016 Presidential Candidate
http://MichaelOatman.info/
2016@MichaelOatman.info

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Filed under Banking, Bernie Sanders, Corporate, Debt & Defecit, Education, Election, Energy, Energy & Jobs, Environment, Jobs, Legalization, National Election, Poverty, Tax Code

An Open Letter To Mayor And Council Of The City Of Tucson, as delivered in chambers on 19 May 2015

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

TUCSON, ARIZONA, 21 May 2015 (UFNPSI).

An Open Letter To Mayor And Council Of The City Of Tucson,
as delivered in chambers on 19 May 2015.

Mayor, Council, thank you. My name is Michael Oatman, and I live in Tucson.

I am here to talk to you about dinosaurs … and while you might think I am refering to Access Tucson, … no. To which I refer *is* the Mayor and Council.

You are trying to privatize Tucson 12 and Access Tucson, through the RFP process, when so many of us in the community bear the conviction that our community media should remain fully funded through the City of Tucson.

Now, I thought privatization was a Republican thing ….

The amount you set, $300,000, when the current budget for both is somewhere between $550,000 and $650,000, is clearly not enough for both Tucson 12 and Access, and it is setting a very low bar. These both cannot be funded this way without draconian cuts, or, charging for programming time, or advertising, or all of these.

What’s worse is that you are still keeping millions of dollars in franchise fees which are earmarked to fund both these channels.

Now if you do not have enough pie to go around, please expand the pie and invest in projects, like providing Gigabit Ethernet, which is massively revenue positive, using the Copenhagen or Chattanooga models, as very many US cities are now doing.

Why do we deal with uncertainty? We all know what Access and Tucson 12 are like now. Why risk throwing that all away? Who knows what we will get with private enterprise handling these? It would be that much better to keep them as they are.

Or, is it actually your goal for the RFP process to fail, so that you can sell the property for another giant student housing complex?

Now, if you continue to pursue the RFP process instead of using City Funding … *you* will be DINOs … that is, Democrats In Name Only. Yes, you too will go the way of the dinosaurs, and *your* asteroid will be *your* loss in *your* next election.

Thank you.

~ ~ ~

Michael Oatman
Host / Producer,
Illegal Knowledge TV
(520) 302-5465
mac@IllegalKnowledge.com
IllegalKnowledge.com

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Filed under City Council, Corporate Corruption, Election, Election Results, Energy & Jobs, General, Green Party, Jobs, Local Government, Press Releases, Reform, still?

Liars, Liars Everywhere, And Not A Brain To Think!

Romney’s VP Ryan seems to have a similar memory affliction to Romney and Reagan, or perhaps they all just lie an awful much

Michael Oatman (G) Endorses Gary Johnson (L) for President!

You know, I was going to do all that research and fact-checking by myself, but thankfully, some people beat me to it.

There are many, many of these posts on the internet, so you could Google them or just try these:

Actually, what came up on my Google search of "paul ryan convention speech lies and more lies abound" was even more informative.

Well, that’s it for now.

Have fun not voting for Romney / Ryan, oh and don’t worry…  Next week, I will be equally as hard on Obama — it’s just that the angry sore losers, bigots and racists went first this year.

Gary Johnson (L) For President in 2012!
If you listened to my most recent TV Show on the 17th of August this year, you would know that I am endorsing Gary Johnson (L) who was the Governor of New Mexico a few years back.  I’ll be doing an election special on Illegal Knowledge TV in two months for more information about why I support him.

Please vote for him, since you will be literally throwing your vote away if you vote for either Romney or Obama.

This is also not to mention that you are voting against your self-interests if you vote for anyone except Gary Johnson (L) or Jill Stein (G).  The reason here is that it has been obvious that Obama is simply continuing Bush’s policies on building a fascist federal government which stealthily removes your liberties in no one’s name, and to think that Romney will not exhibit the same cronyism from the Cheney/Bush era is to simply bury your head in the sand.

If the Global Elites can give you a false choice between two equally destructive candidates and shut everyone else out, they will get their way, which is to force all but the top 0.0001% into global slavery by utilizing their global tyranny for which you voted.  We need two new parties and the Libertarians and Greens (not to mention The Truth Party) seem to be pretty fine candidates!  Again, do not throw you vote away!

See you soon!  Vote Gary Johnson (L) in 2012!  I’ll be running again in 2016!

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Filed under Bailouts, Banking, Bullying, Classism, Conventions 2012, Corporate, Corporate Corruption, Debt & Defecit, Election, Endorsment, Gary Johnson, GOP, Government Intrusion, Homophobia, Jobs, National Election, Poverty, Reagan, Romney

On HSBC, Federal Reserve, CIA, Drugs, Leaders and Future Wars

It is truly about time someone put this all together.  Fortunately, I stand on the shoulders of giants.  Mr. Corsi is one.

Sources:  Jerome R. Corsi (in 3 articles: 1, 2, 3) and Coast To Coast AM interview with Corsi

I had a dream the other day, well, night, that I was attempting to extract snakes from the proverbial grass.  This imagery may have been brought on by the many recent news reports of an abundance of pythons within the everglades, or perhaps you could think of the serpent in E.DIN.

Someone was standing a few yards away from me (and was helping me get at these snakes) and would pull the head of their snake from their side, but then mine would retreat simultaneously from my grasp on the head end which I was handling, and conversely, when I would pull, their snake would retreat.

Somehow, a machete materialized in my hand and I began to hack away at the grass and weeds in which the snake was hiding, as did my compatriot.  Eventually we managed to hack away at the grass to a large enough extent that we could spot other snakes hiding in the weeds as well.

As we continued to pull and hack away, it became apparent that both of the ends of our snakes were somehow tied together, so that we were actually pulling on the same two headed snake.  As we cleared more brush it became even more apparent that all of the snakes which were present in the weeds were actually part of the same animal.

Then the ground shook, the brushy area in front of us bulged upward, and out of the soil arose a stone granite Medusa-head, atop of which all the snakes were joined.  I was taken aback, but that was where the dream ended as I woke up.  I mulled it over, and went back to sleep to a different, slightly less weird dream.

The next night, Jerome Corsi was on Coast.

For any of you who still have not heard (of) Coast to Coast AM (formerly with Art Bell, now with George Noory), I strongly suggest that you wiki it or just go visit the website.  In the first two hours of the show, Corsi was on, and he spoke of receiving about a thousand pages of documents from a HSBC Banking employee turned whistleblower named John Cruz.

As Corsi told it, Cruz started out life being poor, his mother having died and his father having left the family.  Living with his grandparents, he got through school and then worked his way up through positions in various banks until he got a break working to expand the client base and clients’ services for HSBC in 2008.  He was finally paid rather well at HSBC.

Cruz worked at the NYC branch of HSBC and was given business client account information for which he was to use to contact clients and attempt to have those clients purchase more services from HSBC.  He was basically a mid-level marketing guy with access to business accounts.

In the course of performing these duties, Cruz discovered that about 90% of the accounts he received were either fraudulent or suspicious.  That is, when he would attempt to contact any of these clients, say, at their businesses, he would find the business did not exist (think barren weeded warehouses), or that there would be no obvious activity happening (no office furniture, no workers, you get the picture).  When he contacted individuals, those people were unaware that their names were being used in conjunction with a business, and those people were either past HSBC customers or victims of identity fraud through credit cards.

Since numerous laws including the PATRIOT ACT required Cruz to notify at least one of his superiors of these many breaches in practice and law, if not other regulatory agencies as well, he went ahead and did so, lest he be seen as the one breaking the law.  After all, he liked his job at that point.

Well, this is what got Cruz fired not but two years after landing the job, for “poor performance”.  One wonders how one could perform well with only 10% of a client base with which to work.

When he brought these cases up to management, he was told that there was no problem and that he was imagining it, and when he went to HSBC security, they told Cruz they were “prevented by executive senior management of the bank from doing anything about accounts like this”.

Cruz noted that these accounts were being used to transfer via telephone (never with checks) large sums of money — in the hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars — to and from accounts which were not on record with the bank.  This, Cruz guessed, would total something easily into the billions or even low trillions of dollars of money laundering.  Cruz further guessed, probably correctly, that HSBC senior management knew of and was participating in and likely profiting from the scheme.  “From what I saw, I came to suspect HSBC had become the Mexican drug cartels’ bank of choice,” he said.

So at this point, I’m thinking, “maybe I should check out my local HSBC Bank branch to see whether there is an account worth millions in my name.”  I’m thinking we all should check on this, just to be certain, and withdraw all funds if there is.

Cruz started wearing a wire, on his own, and copied about a thousand pages of documentation of the suspected laundering activity.  After recording conversations with management, he took his case to Jeremy Scileppi, bureau chief of the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office on Long Island.

“Scileppi was no more interested in hearing what I had to say than was the HSBC senior bank management,” Cruz said.  “I got stonewalled.  That’s when I decided to write a book.”

Titled “World Banking World Fraud: Using Your Identity,” Cruz’s book was published on 7 October 2011.  Cruz then took his book and documents to Corsi, who talked about them on the Coast show on 6 February 2012.

That’s where it all gets interesting.

Corsi used to be in banking, before becoming an investigative journalist, and Corsi loves whistleblowers.

Corsi, on Coast, mentioned that there would be no way that such millions would be able to be transferred with such regularity to or from any bank, much less the London-based HSBC, without attracting the attention of the US-based Federal Reserve Banking System.

Now the Federal Reserve is not a government agency, but is a collection of private banks organized in a system with tight, and basically illegal, control over the United States currency supply.  So I agreed with Corsi; the Fed must have known about this, and if so, then they were obviously just as well involved in the money laundering and illegal profiteering.  After all, no sane person would let that many billions or trillions slide without at least taking a cut, unless they were being blackmailed or something.

So now to recap; we have the drug cartels laundering the drug money from the drug users in the United States through HSBC (and perhaps other institutions like PayPal and AmEx — see Corsi’s third article), while HSBC and the Fed take a cut and let the process go unhindered.  How many snakes is that?

So how does Corsi or Cruz for that matter know it was drug money?  Well, maybe it’s not, but who else makes that much money in that short of a period of time (I know, Big Pharma and Big Oil) and still needs to launder it through ficticious accounts?  (Right, drug cartels.)

And all the HSBC high level executives know about this?  Undoubtedly.  Will it be investigated?  Well, hopefully; let’s find out.  This should be one of the biggest news stories of 2012.  But will it be?  Again….

Now, you may ask, does Fed Chair Ben Bernanke know about this?  Quite possibly.  Do the individual twelve Fed Bank Chiefs know?  Almost certainly.  Does US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner know?  Maybe.  How about Dubya or Obama?  Hmmmm….  I wonder.

But I know who absolutely has to know, since it is their job to know these things, and that is the CIA.  And if the CIA knows, you can bet the FBI is out of the loop.  Corsi agrees with me using other logic.

Corsi figures that at least $2T (that’s two trillion dollars) annually goes to the US black market in drug use.  That might seem high, considering spreading that total out over the US population of 400M people gives you $5000 spent annually per person.  But then I thought about all those Wall Street Bankster and Hollywood Insider parties Featuring Charlie Sheen, and Corsi might be about right.  I’m going to leave Corsi in the dust for the rest of this article, though.

The CIA has a number of “Black Ops” (programs or operations which are to be kept secret from the public, like the Bin Laden raid) that need to be funded every year.  The problem with funding black ops is that by publicly funding them, even by just stating the actual total of the funding, you make the black ops a little less black.  So what does the CIA do to counter this problem?  They “earn” the money needed to fund their black ops.  Blackly.

We’re not talking about bake sales here.

The LA Times did an article about ten years back detailing how the crack cocaine epidemic was started in LA because the drug was created by the CIA (just add baking soda?) to fund a CIA black op in Nicaragua, giving arms and other support (like mining Contra ports) to the Sandinista government to keep the fight going between the US-publicly-backed Contras and the Sandinistas, so that more US taxpayer money could be thrown at the Nicaraguan civil war.  War costs more if you do it longer.  This is also good for banks.  The CIA also helped to intensify the US War on Drugs using this same operation (thereby providing even more money for various LEOs).  This is a great dual example of the use of the Hegelian Dialectic.  You can wiki any and all of this.

At any rate, the CIA was actively involved in selling drugs.  It still is (why are we in Afghanistan?  Opium!).  It has found that line of business quite profitable historically and quite useful when it comes to funding their black ops, and keeping that funding black.

And those are just two examples.  The CIA created the Mujahadeen (precursors of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda), and therefore the “war on terrorism”.  The CIA was deeply involved in the coup d’etat which in 1953 overthrew the popularly elected Prime Minister of Iran Mohammad Mosaddegh so that they could install the Shah into absolute power, which immediately benefited Big Oil, setting the stage for the 1979 Iranian revolution which brought the Ayatollah and his Shiite successors to power, to now threaten Israel with nukes.  The CIA even created an asset (a person who will carry out tasks for the CIA when asked), internally known as Tim O’Brien, although most of us knew him as Osama Bin Laden (the CIA trained him in Egypt).

So you see, as it turns out, the CIA has quite a good track record (or bad, depending on who you ask) of getting the “correct” leaders in power using drugs and drug money directly, or indirectly through funding their operations.  In this case, correct means that those leaders will willfully do your bidding, or, in this case, the bidding of the CIA and the Bilderberg Group.

If you do not know what the Bilderberg Group is and who composes it, I again very strongly suggest that you read up on that, right nowI’ll save your place, just close the new tab or window after you’re done.  Go ahead, I’ll wait.

Okay, you’re back.  So now I take it that you have figured out that the Bilderbergers are an insanely wealthy group of oligarchs intent on world domination and a return to feudalism and serfdom for the rest of us who are not to be simply killed off, while they pursue life extension technologies and get to fly to other planets on our cool black triangular shaped AGV craft, right?  What, didn’t you read the part about the Georgia Guidestones?  Okay, I’ll wait; read the ten inscriptions, please.

All right then, let’s recap again.  Let’s see if I can get this right.

So the Bilderbergers who want to control everything, and who do control politicians of all parties in most countries, along with the CIA, and by extension most militias, wars, conflicts, and whatnot, do so all for the benefit of the banks, the owners of which mostly comprise the members in the Bilderberg Group.  The CIA uses the drug money which is laundered through these same banks (which create economic crises to make those already rich even richer) to accomplish the goals of the Bilderbergers, of which Ben Bernanke is a member, and all of whom directly benefit in both power and money from these processes.  I’ll bet anyone ten grand (even Romney) that there are about 3,600 snakes on that Medusa head.

So now we are all talking about a war between Israel and Iran.  I heard the other day that someone in the US government suggested that it was actually Iran that flew the airplanes into the WTC towers.  I guess Iran must have flown that invisible plane into 7 WTC.  No, silly, it was Pakistan’s ISI (their CIA) and Israel’s Mossad (their CIA) who organized the whole thing.  Aside from the fact that at least 13 of the 19 supposed terrorists turned up alive since 9/11 (yes, true, again, look it up), most of those suspected terrorists were from Saudi Arabia, and the others from Pakistan, with one from Afghanistan.  That, of course, is why we had to invade Afghanistan, and then Iraq.  What now, Iran?

Franklin Delano Roosevelt made sure that our aircraft carriers were not in Pearl Harbor and that the radar was down for repair on the morning of 7 December 1941 because his New Deal policies were not pulling the US out of depression, and he figured that a full-scale war with Germany, Italy and Japan could recreate the manufacturing base required to reinvigorate the US economy.  It turned out that he was right about the economy, but it did not prevent him from committing Treason that day.

The trouble making that 2012 analogy is that war between Iran and Israel would undoubtedly involve Russia and then China, and barring a new wave of isolationism within the US, it would involve our nation as well, and would very likely go nuclear, since Israel has built up quite a stockpile of nukes over the last 26 years since Mordechai Vannanu started reporting on it.

If we legalized drugs, regulated and taxed them, we would have plenty of money to give to Iran to stop them from developing nukes, not to mention for jobs, education, green energy development, ending poverty, social security and really whatever, but where would the CIA get all the black money for their black ops?  Into what new nefarious ventures might they delve, hurting everyone in the process?  Not that I’m arguing against legalization, because I’m not, but perhaps the CIA and all the Banksters are just too expensive to keep around.  I will need a body double before I travel to Dealey Plaza.

If the CIA wants to do something which is actually useful, it should get the Iranian Green Revolution which started in February 2010 into power, since most Iranians, by a landslide, do not want war with Israel.  No one who I know here wants war with Iran.  But then again, no one I know is a Bilderberger.  They want a situation where every 13 out of 14 people living now will be dead.  You’ve got to ask yourself one question: “Do I feel lucky?”  Well do ya, punk?

We cannot begin another Great Game, this time with Persia as the prize.

The problem is that we are making a repeat performance of the events leading up to the illegal invasion of Iraq in late 2002 and 2003, and while I suspect that Iran is actually enriching uranium and to a lesser degree plutonium to produce weapons-grade materiel, I think it would be wisest in this case to offer to lift all sanctions and restore diplomatic relations with Iran only if they would turn over all nuclear production to Russia and/or the IAEA, so that it could be used only for peaceful power generation.  In fact, I think it would be even more wise to convince Iran to drop the nuclear program altogether and pursue wind, wave, solar and tidal energies exclusively, just like we should do, and just like Germany is doing already.

The nightmare would be the prescribed culling of the population to 500 million via a nuclear WWIII, but that would be letting the snakes win, and I still have a machete.

I actually do quite often have prognosticative dreams which turn out to be metaphorical, and occasionally literal.  More often, they have happier endings, but there is no reason this one cannot have an ending where the figurative Medusa head is obliterated.

That kind of stuff/people absolutely hate(s) it when you shine the Light of Truth on it/them.

With the Light of Truth and Love, We All Will Take The Power Back!

Vote Green!!!  Vote Oatman!!!

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Filed under Banking, Corporate Corruption, Education, Energy, General, Government Intrusion, International, Iran Crisis, Jobs, Legalization, Poverty, Reform

At Last, GOP Admits They Want Slavery

Source:  Huffington Post

I’m not quite sure who at Huff Post didn’t manage to catch this the first time around.

From the above cited article:

The politicians pushing drug testing disagree. In South Carolina, where the unemployment rate is 9.9 percent, well above the national average of 8.5 percent, Republicans want the nation’s toughest requirements: blanket drug testing of every applicant for unemployment benefits and compulsory volunteer work for the long-term jobless.

Now, I don’t know if I need to give you the definition of the word “volunteer”, but I’ll give you the link.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/volunteer

Of course, the issue here is that Republicans want to mandate “compulsory volunteer work” for those on unemployment insurance.  Well, if, to volunteer, you must be actively willing to do whatever it is, then how exactly is the oxymoronic phrase “compulsory volunteer work”, presumably where, since the work would be compulsory (so you would not actually be volunteering, but would be mandated to work, and to work at no pay at that), how is it not an exact description of slavery?

With slavery, it is mandated that people perform work without pay, and with “compulsory volunteer work”, it would be mandated that people perform work without pay.  Ergo, “compulsory volunteer work” is just a euphemism for slavery.

Finally, the Republicans admit what everyone has been thinking.

The GOP wants to go back to the “good ole days”, um, where slavery was legal?  Really?  But there it is, in black and white, for all to see.  The GOP wants us all to be slaves.  I knew it.

Wait one minute.  If the GOP wants to go back and make us all “volunteer” slaves, could they perhaps get a few non-profits together that had people picking cotton and tobacco, and maybe even vegetables in the fields?  That way, the GOP could kill the DREAM Act, have their border fences, and not have to pay for any housecleaning and gardening labor.  They could still prevent any economic recovery, since all of us who were out of work would have to volunteer for the already rich, who, after all could pay for these jobs, but if they have slaves, then why bother?

This all has to do with the notion that the GOP thinks that anyone who is poor is on drugs, and that those people receiving any form of public assistance must be poor, and therefore on drugs.  I don’t know, but if I were to work for those assholes, I would need to be on drugs.

First of all, those people who get unemployment insurance (UI) are able to do so because they were just recently employed, and through no fault of their own, they were laid off, downsized, outsourced, or what have you, generally by an already rich Republican.  The money which pays for UI does not come from the individual taxpayer in the first place.  It comes from a tax on corporations which would never be given back to the corporation if left unpaid to the UI recipient, and generally comes out of the allocated employee salary funds from that former employer, so it really is the UI recipient’s money to begin with.

I know for a fact that there are quite a few Republicans who are employed and who use drugs (Rush Limbaugh to name one).  If there are individuals who are employed and who use drugs with the money they earn, it is their business (beyond the scope of not getting busted with the drugs, should they be illegal).  So if someone on UI wants to spend a portion of that retained earned income on drugs, it should be no one else’s business but the UI recipient’s.

The GOP nationwide in the states’ legislatures and in US Congress has been pushing for enactment of legislation which would remove welfare, TANF, SNAP, and UI recipients from having the ability to receive their checks unless they are able to pass a mandated random drug test.  Oh, and by the way, the recipient has to pay for the test.  I thought the GOP was against individual mandates, or perhaps that is just when it suits them.  One law in Florida mandating these measures was struck down because it clearly violates the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution against unreasonable search and seizure.

This all caught my eye because there is some pushback from the Democrats who are essentially saying that if you are going to test people who get public money (still not sure why they include UI), then we ought to be testing everyone who gets public money, including state and federal representatives.  Maybe not oddly, but at least effectively, this move made some of the GOP sponsors of the bills withdraw them, in what seems to be a direct admission of hypocrisy by the GOP.

Yes, once the Democrats pushed back by amending the bills so that the GOP bill sponsors would also have to get tested, those Republicans decided that the measure was not such a good idea after all.

I think that if we were going to institute this policy, it would be a good idea to make sure that ALL public money, like corporate banking bailouts for instance, will only go to people who have tested negative for illegal drug use, particularly cocaine, MDMA, and maybe ketamine in their case.  Oh, and how about all those oil subsidies?  No drugs for them.  No more partying with the regulators for you, Big Oil!  Imagine how much money this would save.  Do you really think the oil and banking barons would give up their drugs for public money?  I doubt it.

And the next time you see some sort of whacked-out SOPA/PIPA/NDAA/EEA type of legislation come out of Congress, well, test them too.

Vote Legalization!  Vote Green!  Vote Oatman!

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Filed under Bailouts, Banking, Corporate, Government Intrusion, Green Party, Jobs, Mandatory Drug Testing, Poverty, Reform, Unemployment Insurance

Thoughts on SOTU Address and Responses

Fortunately, I listen to NPR (National Public Radio), so unlike CNN viewers, I was not subject to having to view the GOP ad which aired immediately prior to the address, although I missed out on the video and what I’m sure were quite a few looks from some members of Congress.  I did get to hear the full text of the address, and I figured I would share some of my thoughts on what was said.

Obama opened with thanks to Armed Forces members, which was nice, but I was appalled by his statement that he thinks war makes us safer and more respected around the world.  We know for a fact that it does not.  Our supposed “war on terrorism” (you cannot make war on a tactic) is known to be used as a recruiting tool to enlist more members in Al-Qaeda, and only creates more resentment worldwide.  Claiming otherwise, at first pass which might seem naive, is not so, but is simply a move to create more taxpayer-funded business for the defense industry, and to extend our false imperialism in a battle with China for oil and other energy resources.

Speaking of energy and by extension jobs and the economy, we were asked by Obama to imagine our situation having a more positive outlook.  This is essentially the method employed by Family Guy’s Brian Griffin’s fictitious book, “Wish It, Want It, Do It” and is completely ridiculous.  I can imagine it, but why won’t Obama address the situation in any meaningful ways?  Programs can be instituted in various departments which will help things and which do not require congressional approval, but it seems to be more politically expedient to do nothing and blame the other party for lack of progress.  No wonder approval ratings for both parties are at an all-time low.

We could bring more manufacturing back if there were limits (taxes, tariffs and other fees) imposed on corporations which practice outsourcing to other nations, rather than having us all just wait for the Chinese wage to go up.  With corporate taxes, we need more sticks and fewer carrots.  We already have the biggest corporations paying next to nothing on record annual profits.  These loopholes need to be closed immediately.  Job training needs to work in conjunction with a reduction of military manufacturing and conversion of those defense industry plants and technologies to green energy production and sources.

I do agree that we should offer states something like a 3 to 1 match on state university and college funding increases, and incentivize universities to reduce or not increase tuition.  We also need to increase Pell Grants to twice higher than 2000 levels, and use the Treasury and not banking institutions to handle Student Loan repayments.

Some other thoughts on energy production:

  • We cannot afford more oil production, furthermore, we will need to keep the oil we have, and keep it in the ground.  We need to use only carbon-negative or -neutral energy sources.
  • We cannot afford to ruin all the water and create hundreds or thousands of earthquakes by further developing hydrologic fracturing (fracking).
  • We cannot afford to susidize oil production any longer.  We need to tax it, along with fracking, completely out of existence.
  • We can afford to develop wave energy generation, where strings of hinged booms and buoys float on ocean waves and where the hinges turn generators based on the wave movement.
  • We can afford to harness underwater tidal forces which can turn propellers like wind turning a windmill as the tides go in and out.
  • We can afford to make wind energy more efficient and more plentiful, including offshore.  Paint them to blend in if you are so concerned with your scenic view of the offshore oil rigs.
  • We can afford to make solar more efficient and more varied, and use the massive acreage located within the Nevada DOE site to make enough solar energy for all the homes in the US.
  • We can afford to place solar and wind installations on all manufacturing plants, with all new homes getting active and passive solar on the rooftops.
  • We can afford to make better batteries, so I agree with Obama on that one.
  • We can even develop (it has been done) GM bacteria which take greenhouse gases out of the air, and then which use the sequestered molecules to thrive and excrete oil which we can use.  I suspect the same method could be used to create natural gas.

Any idea to help alleviate the mortgage crisis is a good one.  What about getting peoples’ foreclosed and unpurchased houses back to them?

How about getting mercury out of vaccines?  Well, getting it out of the water is great also.  Strengthening the FDA and preventing mercury, dioxins and arsenic from entering fish and other seafood chains via stream runoff is wonderful.

Here’s a better idea, we can increase the taxes on corporate gains, etc. (Romney’s and Buffet’s incomes) and let the added 10-20% increase be earmarked by those taxpayers individually toward their choice of investments for R&D to colleges, universities and green energy businesses.

As for fixing the tax code, there are various numbers which could be used, but we should employ a progressive taxation system similar to the following, where individual incomes of:

  • >$1M should pay 40% on amounts at or above $1M,
  • >$500K should pay 25% on amounts between $500K and $1M,
  • <$50K should pay zero, and
  • incomes between $50K and $500K should pay 15% on amounts between $50K and $500K.

In addition, FICA & Medicare (at whatever percents, usually 2%-6% each depending on the national mood) are taxed on all incomes over $50K, with no upper limit.  There should be a 50% estate tax for liquidity over $1M, though not for real estate and investments.  The total tax levied on all corporate gains and investment incomes should be about 30%, and would be excluded from the calculation of the individual incomes above.  Married couples filing jointly would double the income requirements above, and dependants claimed would allow for a $25K deduction per dependant.  All income amounts would be COLA adjusted for successive years.  Therefore, if your household consisted of a married couple with two children filing jointly, and your combined annual income did not exceed $150K with no investment income, you would pay no taxes.  If you were single making $100K/yr, with $50K in investment income, you would pay $22.5K plus FICA & Medicare on $50K (somewhere around $2K to $6K), for an effective tax rate of about 18%.  This would increase current revenues compared to the current tax code (it would generate somewhere around $2.5T in income taxes, plus perhaps $2T in capital gains / investment taxes), and would create massive spending from the middle class, which would in turn create the largest economic expansion since the 1950s and 1990s, thereby generating even more tax revenue, particularly for states and localities.  Taxing corporations at a reasonable rate (20-25%) on incomes exceeding $500K with no loopholes would generate another $2T or so.  We would have a $2T surplus and the debt would be paid off in a record 8 years.  It only takes political will or better members of congress to accomplish this.

You can feel cynical about nothing getting done, but you could also just institute massive political reform.  Mandate shortened campaign seasons to a couple or a few months.  Ban all stock and commodities trading by congress people.  Limit lobbyists to genuinely interested parties, with no payouts.  Limit campaign contributions to individuals only.  Have no more filibusters in the Senate unless you actually take the floor and read something into the congressional record which pertains to the topic at hand.  Limit supermajorities in normal voting where a 50% majority is required.  End the Bush Cycle between lobbyists, regulators, other oversight positions, congress, and other federal positions.  Once someone takes one position within an industry, they cannot switch (from private to public sectors or vice versa) until having not been employed in that industry for at least five years.  The SEC needs more teeth.

The way you end the source of attacks against US is to get our bases out of Mecca & Medina, stop state funding Israel & Pakistan, get out of Afghanistan, and end the “war on terrorism”.

Finally, we can give better, free, jobs training to veterans, and really to everyone, and not just incentives for companies who hire them.

That would be my response to the 2012 SOTU address, but it was not the response given by Mitch Daniels, the GOP Governor of Indiana.

Instead, Daniels simply regurgitated the same old talking points from Rush Limbaugh’s radio show.  How does such an uncaring racist blowhard drug addict (Rush) get to be the non-titular head of the Republican Party anyway?  Perhaps that was too rhetorical.

Daniels talked about there being roughly a 20% unemployment rate, which was really odd, since Republicans never count those not actively job seeking as being unemployed, I suppose unless it suits them.

Republicans do not even want more employment.  Rather, they want higher profits for their corporate donors.  How exactly do you suppose we got into this mess in the first place?

Neither do Republicans want equality.  They want rich white land-owning males to have everything and for everyone else to be slaves, leave or die.

If a Republican cannot route a pipeline through a poor neighborhood, he (and not she) will route it through a wetland.  Daniels said that the XL pipeline deal is, and I quote, “pro-poverty”.  Now, I do not know if Daniels knows yes from no, good from bad, left from right, for from against, but he obviously does not know pro- from con-.  XL is pro-poverty alright.  It is also pro-environmental-destruction.  Tar sands are about the most inefficient and carbon-positive producers of oil known on the planet, and routing a pipeline through an aquifer, particularly the largest in the Midwest, is about as dumb an idea as not using hardened cement on a blowout preventer.  Between XL, drill-baby-drilling in the oceans, fracking, and trying to end the Clean Water Act and EPA, one would guess by their actions alone, that Republicans wanted all the potable water in the country to simply disappear.

Why do Republicans constantly state that raising their tax rates on largely investment earnings will somehow hurt jobs?  It will not.  People will continue to invest (unless the tax on investment earnings was 100%), and the higher the tax levied, the less risky the investments will be.  Graphically plotting gross tax revenue versus tax rate levied looks like a bell curve, and we are way down on the left side low end.

If Daniels wants growth, then his Senate and House compatriots ought to approve the jobs bills introduced this year.  If Daniels wants Obama to fail just like Rush and McConnell stated, he will not want growth.

If Republicans like saving money, they will use the goddamn energy saving light bulbs.  What a ruse!  I replaced 100% of the light bulbs in my apartment (even in the fridge and under the range hood) with the new energy saving kind (for a total cost of $25), and my monthly electric bill dropped by $20 overnight.  I’ll save $215 in the first year of using them.  They even now come encased in a coated glass bulb which acts to diffuse the light, so they shine light just like a normal incandescent, and they warm up to full brightness in about a minute.  You no longer need to get blinded by the compact fluorescent coil.  What a deal!  Buy them in packs of 5 or 10 to save money.

And finally, contrary to what Daniels said, to have national bankruptcy, our GDP (FY2011 was $15.0T — T is trillion) needs to be smaller than our annual interest on the federal debt ($15.23T total, and $0.457T of that is interest).  We are not even close, well, yet.  Our annual federal budget is about one quarter of our GDP, and is over seven times the annual interest on the debt.  If Daniels is concerned that the debt as a percentage of GDP is just over 100%, he should feel better to know that following WWII, the debt was just over 120% of GDP and in 35 years, under Jimmy Carter, we managed to get that percent down to just over 30%.  Reagan/Bush proceeded to bring that figure back up to nearly 70%.  Clinton brought it down to about 55%, and Dubya brought it back to 70%.  Obama did the rest.  However, the debt needs to be $500T (over 30 times the current amount) to get to where interest payments (at 3% interest) exceed the GDP, at which point the US would become insolvent.  Even if we run a $2T defecit every year (the largest defecit ever in 2009 was $1.9T), it would still take 242 years to reach that point (the United States will be 236 years old on 4 July 2012).  Now, we absolutely do need to pay down the debt, but we do not need to make such draconian austerity measures like the EU is doing, and by doing so, shoot ourselves in the foot by preventing our economic recovery.  Apparently Daniels does not know how to use a calculator, either.

So, that response got four Pinocchios.  Neither Republicans nor Democrats know what they are doing, and if they do, then they know that all they do is make the already rich richer, and be damned with the rest of the populace.  Here’s not quite a joke: What’s the difference between a neo-conservative (Republican) and a globalist (Democrat)?  Well, the neo-conservative wants the corporation which controls everything to come from this country, while the globalist cares not from which country that corporation comes.  Or, alternatively, the Democrat charges too much for the meal, but the Republican leaves the restaurant before the check arrives and sticks you with the bill.

So what’s the better way?  It is to not elect either to office again.

Vote Green!!!  Vote Oatman!!!

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Filed under Corporate, Debt & Defecit, Education, Energy, Environment, Green Party, International, Jobs, Mortgage Crisis, Reform, State Of The Union, Tax Code

The Republicans Are In Disarray, The Democrats, About As Much (so Vote Green!)

After watching the State Of The Union speech last night, I would like to make a few brief comments on the state of things regarding the presidential election cycle this year prior to publishing my rebuttal here.

I thought the speech itself was well delivered and polished (minus the spilt milk joke of a joke), but lacking in the intensity of programs which were proposed to solve the jobs crisis.  Obama was just trotting out the same old lines which had previously gone nowhere with the GOP and which would have little actual impact on the situation regarding the placement of the US in the new economic model of sustainability, and in actual job creation and retraining.

I was thinking how this speech was in no way going to help him against his GOP rivals, and that his chances of reelection were waning.

But then I thought about his GOP rivals.

So maybe all hope is not lost for Obama, but why do we always have to settle for the lesser of two evils?

I was, of course, thinking of the Republican disarray which is the progression of the nominating process so far in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina.

After Newt won in The Palmetto State, following on the heels of a GOP certified Santorum win in Iowa, and Romney winning New Hampshire, with Ron Paul close on his heels, you get the distinct conclusion that there will not be for some time in the GOP primary, any distinct conclusion.  Even the comedian Stephen Colbert, made a last minute pseudo-run in South Carolina, his home state, instructing his followers to pick “Cain” on the ballot as a vote for Colbert, and he actually placed a solid fifth place, ahead of Rick Perry, who placed sixth.

There has got to be a better way.

Even the Republican’s SOTU response, delivered by Mitch Daniels, governor of Indiana, was bland, lacking, regurgitated, hating-Obama-for-no-reason-other-than-that-Rush-told-me-to, outright distortions, which should earn it four noses on the Pinocchio scale.  What was that bit about “pro-poverty” and why do you hate those light bulbs so much?

If Obama drops the ball and the GOP cannot come along and pick it up and run with it, then it is truly time to give up on both sides of that fence.

One thing that truly did matter happened this morning.  Gabrielle “Gabby” Giffords officially retired from the floor of the House.  In a tearful speech delivered by her friend, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the Democratic National Committee chairman, Giffords announced that she was retiring to work on her recovery, and that she would return eventually to public service.  It was so moving that even John Boehner was in tears, or perhaps that is too low of a bar.  In a final tribute to Gabby, 408 House members voted unanimously (!!!) to approve a border security bill she had sponsored.  Gabby was the one good thing Southern Arizona had going on in the US House, and unless Steve Leal wants to take her place, we are headed for a wasteland with the Democrats, as equally as with the Republicans.

But there is another option.  We all have until next Monday 30 January 2012 to renew our voter registrations and turn them in to the Recorder’s Office (on the north side of the courtyard in the Pink Dome Building in downtown Tucson), but this time, we need to register for the Green Party!

With the Green Party there will be no more partisan blockades, and there will be an actual genuine putsch to actually improve things!  You will get jobs, actual manufacturing base, no stupid fake wars, and no reliance on foreign oil!

Plus, I’m running as a Green Party candidate, so you can …

Vote Green!  Vote Oatman!

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Filed under Education, Energy, Environment, Green Party, Jobs, Reform, State Of The Union

PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE QUESTIONNAIRE

From Project White House.

Saturday 14 January 2012

Jim Nintzel
Senior Writer
Tucson Weekly

Thank you Jim!  Here are my responses.

Name: Michael Oatman

Contact/Email:2012@MichaelOatman.co.cc

Website: 2012.MichaelOatman.co.cc

Social media —
Facebook: facebook.MichaelOatman.co.cc
Twitter: @MichaelOatman

Occupation: Webmaster
Website: HeyComputerMan.co.cc

Birth Town: Lancaster, Pennsylvania
Residing in: Tucson, Arizona

Pets: Fish

Favorite food: Baked Ziti, or pizza, both of which I make.

99% or 1%?

  • There will always be a 99% and a 1%.  The issue is the difference of incomes and standards of living between the two.  Eventually, the differences will become less, but it is only now a question of whether that difference reduction is accomplished via social, economic and political reforms or via revolution.
  • I prefer reforms, but I will always assist in the revolution, should reforms fail.

How many houses do you own? None, I rent.

General Questions

Who is your first choice for a running mate? Cynthia Ann McKinney

Make us a campaign promise: “I Do Solemnly Swear To Read The Tucson Weekly, Weekly!”

Spaceships appear above every major US city: How would you handle it?

  • 1) Find out whether they are ours and whether this is an exercise or a coup d’etat.  If it is an exercise, deny it.
  • 2) If they are ours (and not an exercise), quash the coup and hang the treasonous bastards.  If they are not ours, well, fucking negotiate.
  • 3) If they (not ours) refuse to negotiate, and it is understood what they want, and that is our annihilation, then nuke them.  Cooperate to our mutual benefit otherwise.  Let’s get on board!

Name two people you would bring together in a beer summit.

  • Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman, just to test them.
  • Other than those two, neither of whom would likely have a beer, an effective beer summit might include myself and the leaders of Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Brazil, EU people, Palestine, and Israel.  One can only imagine the tremendous range of topics to be hammered out.  We would need absinthe, not beer, for this one.

Priority Evaluation

Please order the following threats in terms of biggest priority to least priority (1-6):

First of all, I’d like to explain my numbering scheme.  I have these listed in order 1-6, and also in percent importance priority, 0%-100%.  The latter percent is where the issue falls in relative importance overall.  I will use this percent importance scale in further posts.

Order  Pct. Importance  Issue
-----  ---------------  -------
1.     92%              Climate Change
2.     90%              Iran
3.     85%              Unemployment
4.     60%              Food recalls
5.     25%              Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen
6.     0.00002%         Piranhas

FYI, I would place the possibility of Asian Carp invading the Great Lakes at number 4.5 with a percent of 30%.  Additionally, I would give 100% to overall political reform of elections involving the federal government.

Issues (stated):

Abortion – Safe, Legal, and Rare.  Birth control should be freely and widely available so that abortion effectively exists only to protect the life and well-being of the mother.

Guns – For the Second Amendment, and for the argument that a background check (instantaneous) does not impinge on it.  I also support free public gun training, particularly for those who wish to carry concealed.

Death penalty – Only for the offense of Treason.

Marijuana – For decriminalization, for removal from Schedule I, and for treatment like and taxation beyond Alcohol and Tobacco.

Israel or Palestine or is it complicated? I support a One-State solution, where everyone’s votes are equal under a united government.

Justin Bieber – I’m for kids with talent.  This excludes Bieber.  I’m morally against mommies trying to relive their youth by entering their daughters into beauty pageants, but there should be no law.

Waterboarding – For the Geneva Conventions for all nations.

Gays in the military – Are we seriously still talking about this?  It has been resolved correctly, finally.

Bigger threat to the institution of marriage: Sinead O’Connor;  Las Vegas?

Obamacare – I support (and have since 2007) a single payer, possibly multi-tiered system.  Please see the website for details.

Boehner’s tears – As fake as his tan.  Where In The World Is Jon Boehner?

Border fence – For a reasonable guest worker program, some version of the Dream Act, drug legalization (except meth and heroin), the cessation of state funding for Israel and Pakistan (our businesses can still sell them weapons), and the removal of our bases from Mecca and Medina.  The fence was historically used simply to mark the national boundary.  Oh, and no Canadian fences.  If we remove the reasons for which people want to come here illegally and/or attack us, we need no fences.

English as the U.S. official language – Je parle Francais aussi.

Amnesty for undocumented immigrants – Yes for the kids; Guest Worker for the adults.

Koch brothers – BANG, ZOOM!  Straight to the moon!

Net Neutrality – 1000% FOR!  100% against SOPA/PIPA!  100% FOR COPPA!  Let corporations make their own limited internet, parallel to the real one.  Let’s see which one people want to use.

Increased defense spending – As if we really have the money to spend — but if we just print it, could we at least print 3 times that much for education, please?

Should text message abbreviations be taught in schools? AFAIK ABVS RNT GRMR.  If you could understand that, then maybe we *should* teach people how to communicate with you, or perhaps better vice versa.

Childhood vaccinations – I’m against mercury in particular and any other toxins in vaccines.  Yes, mercury is still in there.  You should really read the packaging ingredients on everything.  The underlying principle of vaccination is fine, medically speaking.

Disclosure

Please list all:
love-children: none
sexual harassment allegations: none
illegal immigrant house help: no house, no help; I rent
criminal convictions: public record
draft dodges: none
bribery scandals: none
other ethics challenges: I’m NOT for bestiality, incest, rape, the Bohemian Grove, Sharia Law, Vulture Capitalism, or closed minds.

  • God Is Everything And Everything Else.  God does not require religion, but the opposite is not true.

Please remember to register with the GREEN PARTY on or before Monday 30 January 2012!

Please Vote for Michael Oatman on Tuesday 28 February 2012!!!

Thank You ALL For Your Amazing Support!

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Filed under Corporate, Education, Energy, Environment, General, Government Intrusion, International, Jobs, Reform, Tucson Weekly

A Call to Investigate the Causes of the Great Recession

From: http://action.workingamerica.org/c/575/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=3380

Foreclosures and the abuses of the Big Banks are crippling our economy.  In neighborhoods like mine and across the state, we’ve seen people underwater on their mortgages and even losing their homes.  Even worse, in many cases the Big Banks broke rules, falsified paperwork or defrauded homebuyers—and gambled with our homes to enrich themselves.  They have yet to be held responsible.

Families like mine are depending on you to stand up for us and put our needs ahead of protecting the banks.  We can’t just let banks get bailed out and escape consequences for their irresponsibility and greed.

I urge you to fight for a strong settlement with the banks that really will hold them accountable for their misconduct and the damage done to the economy.  Any settlement must reflect the harm done to homeowners and provide large-scale relief for underwater homeowners.  And before you agree to any settlement, there must be a full investigation into misconduct and fraud by the banks.

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Filed under Bailouts, Banking, Corporate, Jobs, Mortgage Crisis

Corporations Are Not People, But The People Who Compose Them Are

I suppose that, in the face of Citizens United, demanding that corporations should not be People is now the new fad.

This was never the case with me.

It is simply, Prima Facie (on the face of it), that corporations, which have not an expiration, nor a Corpus Delecti (think, a gravestone), amongst other oddities, do not quite fit the general description of Persons, nor, as a whole, People, who are themselves rather distinct.

It is with this in mind that I do propose a new set of Rules which shall govern corporations. These rules hearken back to the days of the founding of The Dutch East India Company, which was, and still remains, the very first corporation to come into being, way back in the year 1602 Anno Domini. It itself was only chartered originally for 21 years, but quite obviously, things in this regard have gotten very far out of hand.

We, The People, should now exercise our Collective Will to remand these entities and their progeny back into a more manageable state. I have some ideas.

1) Corporations must be chartered. This really sounds obvious, but it is really not so. Today (and only the other day I in fact have done this), corporations can be created by any individual person or entity without limit. They can exist only by the stroke of my (or anyone’s) pen.

This is not the way it used to be.

Corporations used to be created to perform a duty, and would so be regulated by a chartering commission (now the Commerce Division or some such), and could not become chartered unless they were to serve some obvious purpose.

Corporations should be chartered by a body with actual oversight which can rule on whether their charter is valid.

2) Corporations must serve the Public Good. This is another baby which was thrown out with the bathwater.

Corporations, in their original charter, must state for what Public Good they will provide. The Chartering Commission will have due public input to hear the yeas and nays of why and why not the new corporation will or will not serve the Public Good.

It is ultimately up to the People to determine what, if anything, is in the Public Good.

3) Corporations shall exist for a definite amount of time, during which, they shall either perform or not perform, according to their charter, the stated Public Good via which they were originally chartered.

If a corporation fails to perform in the Public Good, according to the dictum set forth in its charter, then the charter and so the corporation’s license to operate, shall be revoked. This extends to that corporations must pay their fair share of taxes and not outsource their labor to foreign countries, but provide work for those in Our Nation.

An annual renewal of all corporate charters should be the litmus test, and that renewal should be held in public, with public approval.

4) Corporations are not a shield for liability, but a “collection of fools” over which that liability is spread.

I could write a number of names of corporations here which would bring up horrific images of disaster to most folk. I will not, but rather I will focus on what can be done to improve corporate liability.

The limited liability which corporations now enjoy should extend only between its members (who are actual People and not other corporations), so as not to exclude any member from liability, so long as that member has any part in the issue from which the liability had originated.

If there was one bad apple in the corporation, and that one apple made the Gulf Oil Spill or Bhupal, then it is solely up to the other members of the corporation to prove their innocence, or, otherwise, the entire “ship of fools” goes down and shares plural personal liability.

This may just be a start. Please tell me what other rules governing corporations which you would like to see. I am very open to popular opinion on this matter.

We are The People — Let Our Love Be The Way!

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Filed under Corporate, International, Jobs, Reform