this shit should be illegal

I hate capitalism because I hate capitalists.  I hate when people become so focused on producing profit and improving stock that they lose sight of the people who are harmed by the destructive paths often carved by corporations.  Like the BP oil spill. 

We all know that BP, Haliburton, and transocean pointed fingers at each other (and still are doing so), and that they all probably vastly underestimated the size of the oil spill, intentionally, to reduce the amount they'd have to pay in fines.  They also underestimated the impact the oil would have on the gulf's wildlife and economy, not to mention the environment. Nno surprise there.  Now, BP is accusing Haliburton of destroying documents related to their concrete construction around the oil well.  And thus we continue the saga of an epic man-made disaster for which almost no one except that douchey British guy has been held accountable, one that we probably won't see a true resolution to for at least a decade.  After he last major oil spill, the second largest in US history (the Exxon-Valdez), a 20-year court battle ensued which Exxon paid a total of about $375 million to settle.

Then there's the whole housing bubble situation, where banks misled millions of americans into believing they could afford homes they actually could not, selling them sub-prime mortgages with ridiculously low rates, then literally betting on the option they would fail.  Oh, any financial type would tell you they were just "hedging their investments," i.e. protecting against potential losses, but really, the heads of these banks SHOULD have known shit was about to go down.  Hell, isn't that what they're paid millions of dollars every year to do?  So they of course made even more money as the economy collapsed around us and now millions have lost their retirements and/or are without jobs. 

But no one in the financial sector has been held accountable, even after we gave them nearly a trillion dollars to bail out the clusterfuck they created. In fact, citigroup and the sec have been in court for years over citigroup blew more than $770 million of investors' money on the scam. They just tried, again unsuccessfully, to settle the case with the SEC; the judge has basically accused the parties of trying to manipulate the legal process to wrangle a settlement that would have amounted to "pocket change" for citigroup.

The worst part about all this is that the SEC seems to be complicit in allowing Citigroup off by having them pay only $285 million. This is the effing government agency that's supposed to regulate this shit, but they're just as bad.  It's probably got a lot to do with the ties between the SEC and the financial industry, but that's a story for a whole different post.

Fuck capitalism.

In a nutshell...

So I was looking over the front page on HP today and saw a few stories all lumped together that seemed to pretty easily sum up some of the major issues with our capitalist system.:

And of course there's the fluff piece on a baby seal breaking into a home which probably has 3x as many hits as the other pages combined.  because people just don't seem to give a shit that the economy we've been taught to love and obey above all else has failed the vast majority of us.

(Image from the Huffington Post's main page, 12/15/11)

Greedy MFers

I just read an interesting article on how major banks and financial institutions are sitting on more than $3.5 TRILLION in cash reserves that could very easily be invested in large projects that could effectively end the jobs crisis and revamp the economy in very little time.  But they refuse to lend at a reasonable rate and want to just continue to watch their wealth grow while the country stagnates.  I swear conservatives are intentionally destroying our economy running up to the 2012 election, so they can try to pin it on Obama's failure.  The only thing is, if they're successful, we're in for a far worse situation than we currently face, because Republicans have consistently proven over the past 5 decades that they care very little for fiscal discipline or fixing the problems our country faces.

Financial Prosecutions Hit a 20-Year Low

Because no one in the financial industry uses criminal, illegal, or otherwise amoral tactics, and the industry is much less corrupt now than it was 20 years ago.

And I'm from Jupiter.

Chamber of Commerce CEO's Sweet Gig

Tom Donohue, the president and CEO of the Chamber of Commerce, big business' biggest lobby in DC, took in $4.7 million in compensation last year alone, as the economy continued to falter and job creation didn't keep up with the rate of unemployment.  So clearly he earned it.  This is the same guy who says public sector (i.e. government) employees' compensation is bloated and that their benefits are "out of control."  Fuck you Tom Donohue.

Goodbye Middle Class

Quick link to a story about a new study showing that the number of Americans living in economically diverse neighborhoods is actually shrinking.  Neighborhoods are becoming more segregated as wealthy people move into gated communities and such and poor people are hoarded together in slums.  This is exactly how capitalists want society to be structured, so they don't have to intermingle with us common folk.  This helps lead to further segregation of schools and social institutions, and further removes wealthy people from any semblance of real life and its struggles.

Stricter Punishments for the Poor

This is exactly the sort of garbage I'm talking about.  If there ever was a more perfect illustration of how our criminal justice system is designed to benefit those with money and screws over the poor (who happen to mostly be people of color), I haven't seen it.  Here's the lead sentence, which basically sums up the story: "A Rankin County mother will serve more time in federal prison for lying on her food stamp application than a group of people recently sentenced in a multimillion-dollar mortgage fraud scheme."


In the US, you get the legal protection and treatment you pay for, not what you deserve.  This is about as bad as the fact that Jerry Sandusky was released on unsecured bail, meaning he was released to home confinement without having to pay, while millions of poor Americans charged with drug crimes are forced to pay exorbitant amounts of money that they often don't have to post bail.

Launch/Rant

I'm just fucking fed up.  I'm fed up with the bullshit we're spoonfed incessantly about the wonders of the free market, and how deregulation and lower taxes will lead to job creation and economic recovery.  I'm fed up with having only two political parties that both serve the same interests and insulate themselves from outside attacks.  I'm fed up with people buying the notion that corporations deserve the same rights as people without having any accountability or responsibility.  For that matter, I'm fed up with corporations wreaking havoc on the environment, society, and the economy, and our stupid fucking elected leaders helping them to do it.  I'm fed up with the fact that wages haven't increased AT ALL for anyone other than the top 10% of people in this country over the past four-five decades, while those at the very top live in luxury completely unimaginable to the majority of us.

I'm fed up with people believing that capitalism is a beneficial economic structure for anything other than those who already wield hugely disproportionate amounts of power, money, and influence.  I'm tired of our tragic joke of a media that does more to support this raping of American than to stop it.  I'm tired of all the bullshit.

Fuck Capitalism.  It doesn't work for me, it probably doesn't work for you, and it sure as hell doesn't work for the majority of us.