"Hey, Bernie! So nice to meet you at last. Welcome to Leavenworth! I'm Sergeant Justice and I'll be handling your processing and orientation as a newbie inmate here."

Please call me Mr. Madoff.

"Nah, I think not, Bernie. There are alot of things me and the staff have discussed calling you, but it seems Bernie is all we could find that's allowed under our policy regulating the humane treatment of prisoners. As for 'Mister,' it is a title that conveys a degree of respect, and so that was determined to be inappropriate as well."

Well, okay. Bernie will work. My friends call me Bernie after all.

"Oh, don't get me wrong, Bernie. You have no friends here. At least, not yet. Let's see what happens as more indictments are handed out and trials are convened in New York in the near future."

I'm glad to at last get to talk to someone in charge here. Can I please get into a change of clothes? I've had these on since leaving New York this morning, and I want to get comfortable.

"You're reading my mind Bernie! Comfort, after all, is what we are all about here at Leavenworth. So here are your first three jumpsuits, and that should keep you in clothes for a week. Hope you like orange. The color is a bit overstated, to be sure, but I promise you they will lose some of the 'neon orange' quality with repeated washings."

What about the wardrobe my wife had packed and sent via United Van Lines? It should have arrived earlier this week. Can't I just wear some of those clothes instead? Maybe at least my pajamas and my smoking jacket along with a couple pairs of slacks and casual shirts?

"Sorry, Bernie, but I'm afraid we are all prisoners of fashion here, if you'll pardon the pun. The inmates have been pretty much locked into orange as our fashion statement for a number of years now, ever since the Governor's wife decided the black-n-white stripe outfits were too austere. 'Let's introduce some color!' she said, and so we did. You'll like the orange look, I promise."

And so what about my wardrobe?

"Oh, that? Well, we couldn't just sign for it here, so the Warden picked through what he though maybe he could use, and then the driver was instructed to take the rest down to St. Vincent's. If you ever get out of here, you can probably buy the stuff back real cheap - that is if any of it is still left. For now, it seems the homeless hereabouts and in Kansas City are looking rather dapper these days. In fact, one poor bum commonly seen at night under a newspaper sleeping bag in the park was mistaken for a hedge fund manager/financial advisor in his new threads and was run outta' town on a rail."

The Warden picked through the clothes you say?

"Oh, yeah, right. And he told me to tell you he really appreciated the contribution as well. For the future, however, he wants you to know that he's closer to a size 10 shoe rather than the 9-and-a-halfs you included. And he prefers snakeskin to ostrich skin, although the pink oxfords were quite the topic of conversation at the American Legion Fish Fry last night. The Warden, I guess he was stylin' from all accounts, and they now got those shoes exhibited on the backbar. They'll probably raffle them off, along with the two stuffed jackalopes and the rest of the curiosities they've collected over the last year."

"Oh, and I was supposed to ask about the golf clubs. Surely you didn't think you'd be using those here, did you?"

Well, no, not exactly. You see, I was under the impression that I was going to be confined to a different kind of facilty than this... ummmm... something a little more, ah, 'refined' let's say or even more 'civilized' than Leavenworth...

"You got something against us here at Leavenworth Bernie? You think me and the boys maybe ain't civilized enough for you?"

Oh, no. Don't get me wrong. I think you guys are all swell. No problems with any of you I've met so far. Just a bunch of stand-up guys, I can tell. It's just that...

"Well, that's good, Bernie. It wouldn't serve you well to start your visit out here by insulting the staff who will be working so hard to make your visit a memorable one."

Oh, I understand all that, alright. It's just that I was led to believe that my incarceration would be in a facility that was more like a simple residential home, with opportunities for healthy recreation and maybe even a library and classes and other opportunities to expand one's knowledge and experiences.

"You mean like one of the 'Country Club Prisons' or a 'Club Fed' as we like to call them, Bernie?"

Well, yeah.

"Sorry, Bernie, but Leavenworth ain't no Country Club. But you will get opportunity for recreation, a few hours each day in the prison yard. As for expanding experiences, I'm sure some of the boys in the yard will be more than happy to introduce you to some activities guaranteed to stretch even more than your mind. In fact, I'd suggest you quickly pick just who you might consider serving as their exclusive 'girlfriend' if you wish to limit the number of 'mind-blowing' experiences you will get in the first few weeks here."

Now, just wait a cotton picking minute! Don't you know who you are talking to? I've had the best attorneys money can buy, and they assured me that my time would be spent in a far more civilized place than this. Leavenworth is for losers, fer chrissakes, not for the well placed in society such as me and others who can afford to buy and sell people like you a hundred times over. Let me talk to my attorney!

"You know, Bernie? Me and the boys kinda' thought the same things ourselves when we saw you were going to be included here among our inmates. Thinking it was perhaps a mistake, we put a call into your attorneys for ourselves. He said it was no mistake. The judge and he worked out Leavenworth as being the appropriate place to send you. He also wanted you to know that there are no hard feelings for the hundreds of thousands of dollars that were lost by him and his family in your investment program."

Why, that sonofabitch! I paid him well, and he promised he would make sure that I only served easy time in a Country Club, not spending the rest of my life in hell here at Leavenworth. Even the Judge seemed to be fully on board with the plan. I would NEVER have pleaded guilty if I knew my time was going to be spent here!

"Oh, the horror, Bernie! You mean to tell me that these people you trusted with your future actually lied to you and now cause you to suffer unforeseen indignities and uncertainties and a much more painful existence than anything you could have imagined? How could anything like that have ever happened?

"But try not to worry about it too much, Bernie. I see you are to be here for 150 years, or the rest of your life. Me and the boys will be here for all of it to look out for your interests. Whereas some of us were planning retirement in the years to come, we'll now be here for the entire duration because of the loss of the union pension funds invested in your portfolio. Yeah, we're actually kinda looking forward to being here just for you, Bernie. Enjoy your stay at Leavenworth, and don't hesitate letting me know if there is anything I or the boys can do for you."

When I was in my teens, I was visited many nights by the same old nightmare. This dream was one of those that was incredibly real, so much so that upon waking the first action taken was to grasp the bedpost for assurance that it was indeed just a dream. The relief upon discovering I had awakened into the real world was nothing short of exhilarating, even as the dream itself was so incredibly terrifying.

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We continually hear about the "librul media." And we hear this expressed as a complaint against our mainstream media which is regularly made by conservatives appearing on mainstream media outlets in higher proportions than their more liberal counterparts.

In honor of Bernie Madoff and Jim Cramer, I thought I would reprise the following which was previously published in this blog on TPM:

  

I could hardly believe what I was hearing when this financial crisis first broke. Our Treasury Secretary issued a quick response, offering a three-page solution that required immediate application to be successful. Among its points:

1. He needed to have singular authority to approve, direct and disburse $700 billion in stimulus funds (tax dollars) to private banks on Wall Street. The amount of monies to be distributed was selected "because it was a big number."
2. These monies would be used to purchase the "toxic assets" of these banks, with no indication that the taxpayer would receive any equity in return for their "investment."
3. This remedy proposal virtually required overnight approval to be effective. There was therefore no time to be wasted in allowing Congress to examine the proposal and determine for itself if it was a wise use of funds. Furthermore, it was stipulated that there must be no allowance for review of these disbursals by either Congress or our Courts.

"Just trust me!" said Hank Paulson, and upon his trustworthiness were we supposed to commit to him the authority to pass around one of the largest sums of money ever approved for disbursal from our treasury.

I ain't brilliant. When it comes to talking about my skill level as an economist about the best I can say is "Well, I make a pretty good truck driver." Yet, there was something about this whole affair that simply didn't pass the smell test. "Hell," I said to myself, "if I didn't know any better, I would have to say it feels kinda' like extortion or grand larceny disguised as 'economic stimulus.' In fact, it feels like a whole other kind of stimulus that would first require me to bend over and grab my ankles."

But surely I was mistaken. No one could be so bold as to attempt to steal $750 billion in broad daylight, right? And Paulson? Why, he's our very own Treasury Secretary, charged with managing this economy as a public servant looking out for our best interests, right?

Well, yeah, the fact that Paulson was a former CEO of Goldman Sachs presented a glaring conflict-of-interest in this regard that seemed troubling, perhaps. But who was I to even entertain a thought that this upright banking executive and financial expert might be capable of such a bold and corrupt lapse of morality to support thievery of this magnitude? At any rate, surely our Congress could not be fooled into letting anyone get away with an outright crime against the taxpayer of this magnitude provided my suspicions were correct, right?

Under a flurry of such internal questions and outright incredulity, I was paralyzed from pursuing this any further as the TARP giveaway unfolded. Yet, as I listened to the January 23rd issue of Bill Moyers Journal it became increasingly apparent that my first suspicions were correct, regardless of how incredible it seemed that "respectable businessmen" could rob us blind in full view and with no sense of shame.

For a story in last Sunday's "New York Times", largely overlooked in all the pre-inaugural hoopla, reporter Mike Mcintire reviewed investor presentations and conference calls to see how bankers talk when they think the rest of us aren't listening.

This from Boston Private Wealth Management, a healthy bank that was handed $154 million: "With that capital in hand [...] we'll be in a position to take advantage of opportunities that present themselves once this recession is sorted out."

Once this recession is sorted out? Those funds are supposed to generate loans for people and small businesses in trouble -- not to help banks ride out the recession on a cushion of cash.

Then there's this bit of Simon Legree mustache-twirling from the chairman of Whitney National Bank in New Orleans. They've received 300 million dollars in bailout boodle: "Make more loans?" he asked. "We're not going to change our business model or our credit policies to accommodate the needs of the public sector as they see it to have us make more loans."

I'm not making this up -- Flushing Financial crowed that it was newly flush enough to use the bailout bucks to raise the ante and buy new companies: "We can get $70 million in capital," their CEO said. "So, I would say the price of poker, so to speak, has gone up." And, so to speak, he's playing with our chips!

Yeegads, it makes you feel kinda' foolish, don't it? Jesse James robbed banks. Here, we have Hank Paulson and the bankers robbing us! And they've gained for themselves an amount of purloined cash at a level that the James Gang could never have imagined in their wildest dreams!

For Jesse James, he would stick a gun in your ribs with a threat of "Your money, or your life." Pretty effective approach, that, but not nearly as productive as the terrorist tactics engaged by these modern day robbers in the Brooks Brothers suits. The Paulson Gang gained their spoils quite easily simply by threatening to terrorize the whole economy if we failed to fork over the money.

How could we be so dumb?

More importantly, what can we do about it?

First, I think we need to stop delivery on the last portion of the funds promised to the extortionist bankers. If they wish to enhance their personal wealth, they should be encouraged to get a real job and work for their money like any other working man.

Secondly, we need to reclaim the monies that have already been stolen. This can best be accomplished by nationalizing the banks in question; by receiving for the taxpayer ownership of these institutions in proportion to the amount of monies contributed over total assets and holdings of the particular bank. In this way, we can at least claim for the taxpayer some equity in exchange for their contribution of funds to these criminal enterprises. And we can then exercise ownership rights in these banks to reestablish them as legitimate contributors to society instead of their present utility as front organizations for thieves and robbers.

Going forward, we must take steps to create a firewall between Wall Street and our treasury. Having been so keenly duped in broad daylight by these extortionists, we must not ever again allow the robbers to place in the role of policeman and protector any member of this Wall Street/Paulson Gang. This would seem to be pretty obvious, of course, but then someone needs to explain the recommendation that Geithner should serve as the Treasury Secretary in this next Administraion, and that Rubin and others from Wall Street should play critical roles in overseeing our recovery.

Finally, we need to hold accountable Henry Paulson and the other criminals who have so boldly compromised even the very future of this economy for no more reason than personal enrichment. In Jesse James' case, the robber was assassinated in a government directed action to rid the world of the parasite. I would of course recommend against any such action as being too extreme and smacking too much of vigilantism. No, I would instead suggest that a sincere apology followed by a summary hanging in the town square should be sufficient to meet justice requirements and to discourage any such actions from such brazen criminals anytime soon in our future.

Posted below are a few indications of where the founders and other wise ancestors would be aligned in the question about pursuing Justice for alleged perpetrators of crimes against humanity and violations of our Bill of Rights. It is difficult to imagine expedience or harmony driving their decision, but rather a requirement that we proceed with all diligence in defense of our Liberty itself.

"A people may prefer a free government, but if, from indolence, or carelessness, or cowardice, or want of public spirit, they are unequal to the exertions necessary for preserving it; if they will not fight for it when it is directly attacked; if they can be deluded by the artifices used to cheat them out of it; if by momentary discouragement, or temporary panic, or a fit of enthusiasm for an individual, they can be induced to lay their liberties at the feet even of a great man, or trust him with powers which enable him to subvert their institutions; in all these cases they are more or less unfit for liberty: and though it may be for their good to have had it even for a short time, they are unlikely long to enjoy it." -- John Stuart Mill, Representative Government, 1861

"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." - Ben Franklin

"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it." -- Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777

"History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid." -- Dwight D. Eisenhower, First Inaugural Address, Jan. 20, 1953

"If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen." -- Samuel Adams

Henry Ford was obsessed with improving the assembly line and standardizing his product as the means to gain efficiencies and cost savings. All inputs to production were carefully studied to ensure that they were acquired at the lowest cost which was then reflected in the lower sale price of the cars he manufactured.

 

Yet, Ford never considered labor to simply be another production input, or a "human resource" to be carefully managed to gain its utility at the lowest possible cost. Instead, Henry Ford had a pretty clear understanding of the fundamentals upon which to build a consumer economy. He understood that the growing economy required consumers that were able to attain a degree of wealth that would allow them to purchase the products being manufactured.

 

In his time, Henry Ford was roundly criticized by his peers and by Wall Street for doubling the wages of his workers as well as adopting progressive labor provisions such as the 40 hour work week. It was seen as a wasteful loss of profit. More importantly, it represented a threat to the social order. If workers were recognized as co-beneficiaries of this economy rather than simply another resource, it stood to reason that they would simply want a greater share of the profit that was made.

 

"Have You Driven A Ford Lately?"

Ford's success at business, however, ultimately established this focus upon consumer wealth as a fundamental requirement for a successful economy. If this economy was to thrive, then it needed to work to the benefit of both the ownership class and the working class.

 

After over 100 years of development, it's incredibly distressing to see how the corporate overlords of this economy and its chattering class in the press would now have us regress to those days before Henry Ford. Common Wisdom expressed by many economists and pundits assumes that we have somehow taken a step back in time when workers were exploited as a human resource to be bought cheap, used up, and replaced - much in the same way you would use the coal that fires industrial boilers or the grease for the gears on your machinery. In this global economy, they will tell you, the American worker must be competitive. Ultimately, they imply that our labor force is compelled by our "free market" to accept wage rates and working conditions that exist at the most exploitative margins within the world economy.

 

Workers as Human Resource 

Yesterday, for example, the Wall Street Journal printed a news article that is so callous in its disregard for workers as to invoke thoughts of galley slaves at the oars on the ship of commerce. To wit:

 

"There may have been a silver lining for the economy in the horrific December job losses reported Friday by the Labor Department. Companies are cutting back so aggressively that they actually might be increasing their productivity even in the face of a wrenching economic shock...businesses appear to have squeezed more out of the workers they kept on staff, increasing business productivity."

 

Ebeneezer Scrooge could hardly have written the glad tidings of joy about this economy any better than did the editors of the Wall Street Journal.

 

From the Ebeneezer corporate perspective, this might indeed look like "good news." For the Bob Cratchit worker, however, it only adds to the anxiety of worrying about job loss by promising a heavier workload at no additional pay if he or she is allowed to keep their job.

 

The simple fact that the WSJ could declare this to be "a silver lining for the economy" offers a firm understanding of just who they think this economy is supposed to serve. In their estimation, it ain't us workers.

 

In Defense of Sweatshops

To further make this point, today we have Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times weighing in on a related topic where he dreams of sweatshops as tools for providing sound economic development in underdeveloped countries. (I'm not making this up!)

 

"Mr. Obama and the Democrats who favor labor standards in trade agreements mean well, for they intend to fight back at oppressive sweatshops abroad. But while it shocks Americans to hear it, the central challenge in the poorest countries is not that sweatshops exploit too many people, but that they don't exploit enough."

 

Kristof's argument is that the sweatshops are an improvement over the dumps in places like Phnom Penh where the poor scavenge plastic and other recyclables for sale. And he is right. These dumps and the lives lived by those who sometimes even live within them represent a "Dante-like vision of hell" as Mr. Kristof explains it. The sweatshops thus offer a marginally improved existence for the workers they exploit.

 

But Kristof misses the point. In arguing against trade regulations that determine minimum labor standards to be met, Kristof does indeed argue that worker exploitation is acceptable provided it doesn't stoop to the absolute lowest kind of debasement and injury to the workers involved.

 

Sweet Jeezus, I would hope we would strive to do better than that!

 

Building Corporate Profit From the Exploitation of Labor 

Consider the following:

1.) Many of the sweatshops perform work for the major multi-national corporations that have outsourced these jobs from the U.S. and elsewhere.

2.) Most of the product generated is sold to consumers around the world in developed markets such as the U.S., Japan, and Europe.

 

These two factors show the disconnect that has occurred from the economic fundamentals that Henry Ford so brilliantly understood. In Kristof's world, labor is to be acquired at the lowest possible price to manufacture products that are then sold at inflated prices in more developed markets. The concept of "working for a living" is abandoned and replaced with some notion that foreign laborers work - be it in dumps or in sweatshops - simply to have something to do with their time.

 

"The best way to help people in the poorest countries isn't to campaign against sweatshops but to promote manufacturing there. One of the best things America could do for Africa would be to strengthen our program to encourage African imports, called AGOA, and nudge Europe to match it...

 

"Look, I know that Americans have a hard time accepting that sweatshops can help people. But take it from 13-year-old Neuo Chanthou, who earns a bit less than $1 a day scavenging in the dump. She's wearing a 'Playboy' shirt and hat that she found amid the filth, and she worries about her sister, who lost part of her hand when a garbage truck ran over her.

 

'It's dirty, hot and smelly here,' she said wistfully. 'A factory is better.'"

 

Pretty simple, eh? We need only assure ourselves that the exploited worker in these foreign countries isn't exploited too much as they manufacture our clothing and other consumer goods. Never mind that Kristof fails to indicate where to draw the line, this "Exploitation Lite" concept allows Nike and others to enhance their bottom line while providing "jobs" to foreign laborers, and that is the objective here, right?

 

Maybe not. In fact, it is easy to see that such a system is not sustainable in the long run.

 

Common Wisdom: American Workers Need to Be "Competitive" In This Global Economy 

The American "human resource" simply can't compete with labor acquired at pennies/hour in the sweatshops and the dumps and the prisons overseas. The result is that we have seen most of our manufacturing base exported to other countries to gain access to cheap labor. This has resulted in a stagnation of earnings for America's middle class consumer while the ownership class amasses great wealth.

 

But who will continue to buy these products that are sold by these corporations? The answer gets a bit fuzzy, at best, and downright scary when we look at recent developments in our domestic economy.

 

Much of the recent recession is reflective of the debt accumulated by the middle class. What they have lost in earnings over the last decades has been made up in debt, thus leaving an allusion that they continue participating in this economy as effective consumers of products to be sold. The collapse of the housing bubble, however, robbed the middle class of the "home as an ATM" dynamic that fueled many of their purchases. In addition, the debt crisis will rob them of the credit cards that also allowed for purchase of products that would otherwise have been forsaken as "unaffordable.".

 

We now have a situation where the economy is in the tank mainly because consumers were suddenly awakened to their debt dilemma with the crash of the housing bubble. They now find themselves incapable of purchasing the consumer products that drive this economy.

 

How might the American consumer be encouraged to once again participate in this economy? Well, it probably starts with replacing some of these debt purchases with purchases made from earnings income. And that means raising the income levels of the middle class by way of providing family supporting jobs.

 

Unfortunately, however, most "family supporting" jobs that were previously found in our manufacturing sector have now been exported overseas. In their place we find service sector employment and other jobs offered that barely provide a subsistence wage. This is by design, for Kristof and the WSJ will tell us that the American worker must compete with foreign labor willing - or compelled, in most cases - to provide labor at exploitive rates of compensation in oft times grueling conditions..

 

The result is that we have allowed corporations to severely undermine the consumer base that drives our economy, and we now find ourselves at an impasse as this economy grinds to a halt.

 

"Exporting Jobs" as a Means to Truly Develop Foreign Economies 

What is the solution? I suggest that it is necessary to truly treat this as a global economy. And it begins with an understanding that exploitation of labor is not to be allowed in any circumstance.

 

We must apply the lessons taught by Henry Ford over 100 years ago. If Nike or General Motors or Motorola choose to establish manufacturing facilities within the Malaysian economy, for example, then they should be compelled to use this industrial base thusly established to help develop the Malaysian economy. Just like Ford did in his time, this begins with providing a wage and working conditions sufficient to encourage its workers to purchase the products being manufactured.

 

We must also remove all incentives to engage in the exploitation of labor, either here or abroad. This begins by establishing trade policies that in fact encourage corporations to establish an industrial base within developing economies. But these same trade policies must ensure that the products made offshore are not targeted for U.S. consumers but rather for the resident economy. Only in this way will incentive be provided to welcome the foreign workers as participants in this global economy rather than as a human resource to be exploited.

 

Henry Ford understood that unregulated capitalism is an extremely cruel system that is driven by greed and self-interest and that it is unsustainable over the long haul. As Kristof points out, it results in a hell on earth for its worker/victms, be it in the dumps of Cambodia or the sweatshops of the Mariana Islands.

 

Yet Ford and the subsequent labor movement in the United States have shown the ways in which a regulated capitalist economy can greatly serve the interests of all participants. We need now to look at bringing our manufacturing jobs back home to reinvigorate our consumer economy. And we do well to encourage entrepreneurs, industrialists, and our corporations to establish a presence in economies abroad. Use our capitalist resources to help build those economies much like Henry Ford envisioned building our own. In this way, we can export the blessings of liberty for all who participate in those economies while putting an end at last to the exploitation of foreign workers in pursuit of short-term, unsustainable profits.

 

Have you ever wondered how an employer might check job references on a former CIA Operative? Imagine calling headquarters at the agency and asking about the work record for a job applicant who claims he was a clandestine operative for the CIA. I suspect it wouldn't produce a satisfactory result one way or the other.

I thought of this conundrum as I spent time on the road tonight catching up on a backlog of podcasts. Talk of the Nation on NPR broadcast an interview (12/22) with Reuel Marc Gerecht, who offered unsubstantiated claims that extraordinary rendition started as a policy during the Clinton Administration and that Obama may well find need to continue the program. This latter opinion was offered in a kind of "Oh, the American public is really naive. The CIA knows just how valuable these renditions are, and Obama will come to understand this as well once he gains access to all the security briefings that we insiders read on a daily basis."

In an op-ed piece published in the New York Times (Out of Site on 12/13/08) Mr. Gerecht makes the very same claim about Clinton and the same claims about the value of extraordinary rendition. And he obviously knows what he's talking about. After all, the NYT introduces him as "a former Central Intelligence Agency officer" and "a fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD)."

While listening to this expert discuss these "all important national security matters" with Neil Conan, however, I couldn't help wondering about these stated credentials. The guy sounded kind of like Barney Fife in that character's most brilliantly swaggering boastful self as when Barney would work to impress Sheriff Andy (or Otis, the town drunk - it didn't matter) of just how important he was and how he understood things that were beyond the reach of us mere mortals. I swear, you could almost see through the radio this guy's chest puff out as he drew himself taller to talk about matters few could truly understand, god bless our pointed little heads. In fact, he shared with us all just how difficult it is to withstand the "harsh interrogation methods" (better known as torture as specified in the Geneva Conventions) that he, himself, had endured during his training as a CIA Agent. 

It all just seemed to be a mite bit too convenient; the claims of the CIA's unequivocal endorsement of extraordinary rendition too outrageous. This just didn't seem to pass the smell test in offering assurance that this was indeed a credible source. Which leads me to my initial point: How can anyone be sure this guy actually worked for the CIA as a clandestine operative?

In checking the rest of this guy's background, I find that the FDD is a think tank (using the term loosely) populated by many of the same neocons who formed the Project for the New American Century (PNAC). There is little this group  has accomplished that inspires confidence that they, themselves, would feel any compunction about "truth in advertising." It is not outside the realm of possibilities that they would in fact put forth an "expert" to sell their snake oil and bestow upon him such bogus credentials, knowing the difficulty of verifying them.

And truthfully? I hope it is actually the case that Mr. Gerecht is indeed a fraud who is tasked with promoting and defending the criminal assault on our laws that has been committed by this Administration at the behest of PNAC. Because after listening to this Barney Fife channeling Dr. Strangelove for the few minutes he was on the program, I would most sincerely hope that this whack job has never worked for us even as a janitor at CIA Headquarters, let alone in a position where he would ever be allowed to come anywhere near having anything to do with our national security without benefit of first being renditioned into a straightjacket and an asshat.

Can anyone offer any help in determining just who this guy really is? Or perhaps explain how thoroughly NPR  and the New York Times check the background of the "experts" they place before us?

"These firms have to become viable, and that means they have to look at all of their costs and bring them into line so that they can compete in today's global economy because they have come to the taxpayer asking for assistance, and that's the least the taxpayer can ask for in return." 

- White House spokesman Tony Fratto as quoted in Washington Post 12/24/08

"And that's the least the taxpayer can ask for in return?" Excuse me? Just who the hell are the taxpayers here?

Corporate lobbyists like to claim that the U.S. has among the highest corporate tax rate in the world at 35%. And they are right.

What they don't like to discuss, however, is the effective corporate tax rate; the amount these corporations actually PAY in taxes each year. And, once again they are right in avoiding this topic, because to do so would severely undermine their argument that business pays its fair share in taxes in this country when in fact they enjoy considerable corporate welfare.

In November, 2004, McIntyre and Nguyen published their study FREELOADERS: Declining Corporate Tax Payments in the Bush Years. Their findings show a disturbing growth in the corporate welfare state under Bush that has continued unabated to this day. The numbers should be embarrassing to any within this corporate class who claim legitimacy as a taxpayer in light of the enormous profits recorded by the Fortune 500 Companies that were studied.

Over the three-year period, the average effective rate for all 275 companies dropped by a fifth, from 21.4 percent in 2001 to 17.2 percent in 2002-2003.

The statistics are startling:

·         Eighty-two of the 275 companies, almost a third of the total, paid zero or less in federal income taxes in at least one year from 2001 to 2003.....

·         Twenty-eight corporations enjoyed negative federal income tax rates over the entire 2001-2003 period....

·         In 2003 alone, 46 companies paid zero or less in federal income taxes.....

·         In 2001, the Treasury paid corporations $40 billion in tax refunds, a third more than the 1998-2000 average.

·         Then in 2002 and 2003, after the law was changed to expand tax subsidies and make it easier for corporations to carry back excess tax breaks to earlier years, corporate tax refunds skyrocketed to an average of $63 billion a year -- more than double the 1998-2000 average.

Corporations are now paying the lowest levels of taxes in the post-World War II era. In fiscal 2002 and 2003, federal corporate incomes taxes dropped to their lowest sustained level as a share of the economy since World War II. Only a single year during the early Reagan administration was lower.

Meanwhile statistics show that the disparity in incomes between the wealthiest in the business class as compared to the middle class has grown steadily in the last few decades.

Embarrassing? Indeed, unless you have no shame, are overly-impressed with your self-importance, and you are accustomed to having your way via extortion sprinkled heavily with campaign contributions.

How else might the "respectable" Mr.  Paulson & Co. pull off a $700 billion dollar heist of these tax funds in broad daylight? With a straight face, how might they insist that these monies be gifted - with no strings attached - to many of the same companies who have in fact contributed few or no tax dollars to the Treasury account in the first place? How else could they sleep at night after taking a good portion of this money and passing it around as income bonuses and severance packages to their friends or as dividends to their shareholders?

Yet the arrogance and elitism expressed by these "Captains of (the Financial) Industry" and the corporate owners of wealth is not yet fully defined here. No, it is their response to the taxpayers request for assistance in maintaining their own earning potential that sets a new and high standard for just how incredibly arrogant the corporate sector has become, along with their apologists in the political and media arenas.

Having avoided the greater share of their responsibility to pay taxes, these parasitic corporate welfare tagalongs would now propose to tell the taxpayers how their tax dollars should be spent. It was humbling - no, humiliating - to watch as the CEO's of the Big Three Automakers pleaded their case before Congress to receive $17 billion dollars in loans from taxpayers to help our auto industry weather this economic downturn which, by the way, was initially triggered within our financial markets. The amount requested was a mere pittance compared to the monies that were gifted to the financial market itself. And these dollars were expected to bridge a time period within which the auto industry would create a plan that showed how they would survive the economic upheaval we face. This, alone, was different than the Paulson giveaway, which was accomplished without any real explanation of how his $700 billion dollar disbursement might actually serve the interests of anyone beyond the people to whom it was given.

After having stolen theirs, Paulson & his corporate comrades would now insist that "free market capitalism" requires any loans to the manufacturing sector be considered only if the middle class beneficiaries first make concessions to reduce their earning potential. "These firms have to become viable," says the White House, carrying water for these Class Warriors from the winning side "and that means they have to look at all of their costs and bring them into line so that they can compete in today's global economy." How better a way is there to reduce labor costs, they ask, than to use this time of need to extort additional wage concessions from the UAW?

The appropriate answer, from those among the middle class smart enough and strong enough to finally engage the enemy in this Class Warfare which has been visited against us, is to say "Kiss my ass!"

It is past time for the middle class to become smart enough to understand that their earning potential is directly linked to the success of the UAW and other union bargaining efforts. We must be smart enough to understand that a race to the lowest common denominator in wage rates for labor does not serve our interests. We need be smart enough to understand that the "enemy" is not our working brethren, but rather the wealthy class who maintain a strangle hold on labor to gain for themselves every bit of wealth they can grab from this economy.

In standing tall together and repelling this demand that we surrender ground in this economy by agreeing to lower our wage expectations and become "competitive," we can at last let the wealthy corporations and the "ownership" class know that we are not their "human resource." We are not simply another commodity - like steel, or utilities, or raw materials - to be bought cheap, used up, discarded and replaced.

Instead, we must proudly insist that we are owners of this economy with every right to share in its benefits as the wealthy class has done these last number of decades. We are, in fact, the taxpayers who deserve benefit of any taxpayer bailout - whether tendered as a gift or a loan - that may now be offered to soften the blow of this economic downturn. Rather than a "free market," we must instead insist that we engage a "fair market" that recognizes the need to include everyone - poor, wealthy, and in-between - in developing the means by which we will pursue the blessings of liberty and the pursuit of happiness in our economy.

For now, however, the important question to be answered is, unfortunately, "Whose side are you on?" In the end, we must certainly align ourselves with all our brethren - poor, wealthy, and in-between - instead of choosing sides in a counter-productive battle between players in this economy. That is, after all, what democracy is all about. We ultimately need to all roll up our sleeves and work together for the common good in overcoming the many challenges we confront in this economic downturn.

Meanwhile, however, it's important to understand that we have had a Class War imposed upon us by those who hope to beat us into submission. We therefore must now stand tall in defense of ourselves and others in the middle class who have meekly stood for far too long with hat in hand awaiting the largesse of the wealthy corporate class who sold us on "trickle down" economics, and who instead set about robbing us of everything - up to and including our pride - to fatten their own bottom line.

Congress must now do whatever is necessary to address the immediate problems in our economy. In so doing, however, they must refrain from engaging the Class War on behalf of their campign contributors and instead lay the groundwork for a new economy that serves everyone's interests going forward.

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NOTE: Read more CLASS WAR essays by scrolling through the posts on SleepinJeezus' blog here.