We're right in the middle of the biggest money grab in world history

[Lefty48197]

Thanks to George W. Bush and his handlers, we are right in the middle of the biggest money grab in world history. The rich and powerful are working full time to line their pockets with our money, before the window of the Bush Presidency closes. George W. Bush is literally holding open our front doors, while his campaign contributors loot our homes and personal wealth.

As soon as Bush took office, the big money grab began. First it was tax cuts for the ultra-rich. Then it was more tax cuts for the ultra-rich. Meanwhile, the debt and deficit soared, passing the cost of those tax cuts onto to every other American taxpayer, born or unborn.

Throughout it all, the large corporations gained tax breaks of their own. They also gained deregulation and a lack of oversight, which allowed them to try their accounting schemes and line their individual pockets, while leaving their shareholders holding worthless stock certificates. Big Business also gained the open door policy into the White House and Dick Cheney's office, which allowed the corporate executives to write the very legislation that would (de)regulate their particular industries.

Large retailers, led by Walmart, decided that they wanted in on the action, so now nearly every single product sold on their shelves is manufactured in China by workers earning slave-wages, working under inhumane working conditions, ignoring their severely detrimental effects on the environment, and generally doing a whole host of things that could get the corporate executives tossed in jail, if they dared try those things in this country.

Not to be outdone, the energy and health insurance industries jumped into the action. We saw what happened in California a few years ago with the manipulation of the energy market that caused blackouts and needlessly caused enormous price increases for consumers. Today, the oil industry is getting "their share" as all of the major oil companies are raking in record profits, in spite of the high gasoline prices that are crippling our economy. The natural gas industry decided to get it's piece of the pie this winter as they jacked their prices up on the order of 100%. Meanwhile heating oil and diesel fuel prices also helped keep the cash registers stuffed at the American energy companies.

The health insurance companies are also making record profits, while more and more Americans go without health insurance. I think we're up to 50 million uninsured Americans these days. Those that do have insurance are paying higher premiums every year, while getting less coverage, increased co-pays, and a whole lot of run-around from the national Republican party.

Wall Street wants their share, so the Bush junta is trying to privatize our Social Security accounts, in order to pump billions of dollars into the stockmarket, which will help both the big money interests of Wall St. and the big money interests of corporate America. Nevermind that the stock market has flatlined for five straight years, and that future retirees would suffer greatly under Bush's privatization plan. The Republicans are only interested in facilitating the big money grab that transfers money from those that have only a little bit, to those that already have a whole lot.

Credit card companies? They're now charging interest rates that used to be called "loan sharking". Now they're called "business as usual" in George W. Bush's America.

Wages and benefits are being curtailed, and the buying power of minimum wage earners continues to fall behind inflation. What are the corporations doing with the extra money they gain from wages and benefits that effectively get cut year after year? They're lining their pockets with some of it. They're buying homes and funding college educations for their children, grandchildren, and unborn great grandchildren too.

And it's all at the expense of the American consumer. Those that want to buy homes of their own, those that want to send their own children to college and complete the American dream for their families are watching their dreams fade away, all because George W. Bush is helping the rich and powerful take money out of our pockets on a daily basis. They must feel like kids in a candystore, taking candy from babies. Where are the adults?

[theivoryqueen]

1. The first presidency purely for profit

regardless of ideological agendas - although they are pretty good at using radical ideologies to whip up "base" support. It's always been about the money with this crew. It goes back a long way - in "The Candidate from Brown and Root", the Texas Observer traces the history of one crucial "sect"ion of these war-profiteers. It's the same bunch, different war....

[asjr]

2. And enabling them all the way is corporate media.

[Fridays Child]

9. And why shouldn't they? They're accountable only to the bottom line.

The truth is expendable and corporate media are our enemy. But don't worry. Not too long from now, it will all come to a grinding halt in what history will eventually view as this country's second Great Depression. And the robber barons will sit back and count their cash while the rest of us stand in bread lines.

[Carni]

16. They aren't even accountable to the bottom line

These CEO's salaries are an obscene joke--

Here's something funny for comparison...remember when Roger Smith (CEO of GM years ago) was paid one million dollars in salary and it was a big scandal?

How far Bush has brought things from that point!

[marmar]

3. No doubt. ...

We're watching as this country is raped and pillaged. The only difference between the Repugs and the pirates are the eye patches.

:cry:

[Lefty48197]

4. The only difference between the Repugs and the pirates are the eye patches

That would make a GREAT bumpersticker!

[marmar]

5. 48197? Ypsilanti?

:shrug:

[Lefty48197]

8. You got it.

Named after Dimetrius Ypsilanti, the guy who opened the first coney island restaurant in town ERR ...I mean after Greek war hero Dimetrius Ypsilanti.

[marmar]

18. Cool....It's the home of my alma mater!

And that zip code is a permanent part of my consciousness. Go Eagles!

[Lefty48197]

23. You're showing your age!

I remember when they were the Hurons, but Michigan Normal College was BEFORE my time.

[Carni]

17. It really would! I want one! eom

[nomatrix]

31. Good Call!

They bury their treasure on islands too!

[theivoryqueen]

11. and the cool outfits

and great phrases like "booty", shiver me timbers and Arrggh. On second thought.. Arrrgh. Before the 2004 elections I drew a little comic strip for my storefront window that had Bushco backing a brinks truck up to a treasury building with lots of suit-clad GOPpers ferrying money bags into the back. At the time, I drew them rushing, as I had hoped that their days of looting were numbered. Not many passers by seemed to get it... or care.

[Art_from_Ark]

25. Today's pirates even have their own parrots

with names like "Tweety" Matthews and "Squawker" O'Reilly

[StClone]

6. The real death tax

The burden these thieves have inflicted on all other Americans will tax the life out of the country. Talk about a death tax.

[Double T]

7. I agree with you COMPLETELY!!!!!!

There are certainly NO RESPONSIBLE ADULTS minding the activities within the 'playpen', also known as the washington, d. c. beltway. The K street lobbyist looters have dismantled the middle class infrastructure with their takeover of our government by their clients, the rich and the Monopoly Oriented Corporations. Unfortunately it will take an ugly ending to our economy, before the collective body, formerly known as the the American Middle Class, gets up off the damn couch to do something about IT. In the mean time, we must continue to fight with pen, ink, keyboards, telephones and protests until the masses awaken from their potato chip and coke induced slumber.

[Lefty48197]

10. And I agree with you too.

:hi:

[leveymg]

12. The biggest since World Wars One and Two, anyway.

Those broke the back of the European empires. Now, it's our turn to be bled dry, and our assets are being taken over at pfennigs on the Reich Mark. Follows an old pattern, really.

I guess that means we're going to lose the war.

[lala_rawraw]

13. I wonder if all this stealing could be a legal

Case for the masses... but what do I know, I could be barking up the optimism tree again
:smoke:

[DarleenMB]

14. You're WRONG

Why only today someone wrote a LTTE that said Bush spent all that money building up the military!! :sarcasm:

See. It's ALL Clinton's fault.

Again.

[Carni]

15. Yeah you nailed it--this sentence is EXCATLY what is going on!

"The rich and powerful are working full time to line their pockets with our money, before the window of the Bush Presidency closes."

The above says it all!

Bush is basically a Saddam type character (multiplied by 1000 fold)

When the dust settles and people actually realize what he and his cohorts did?

That will be all she wrote because I don't see a way out for this country.

[EVDebs]

19. If Friday Jan 20th's Dow closing is any indication, the profits are paper

profits and 'psychic' dollars unrealized. Oil at above $60/barrel with no conservation plans in sight and the administration ignoring Amory Lovin's www.oilendgame.com planning...the Bush base of rah-rah's can expect to see inflationary pricing in energy with depressionary wage levels causing the 'consumer base' to wipe out those far flung supply chains world wide.

Globalization has overextended itself. So sorry Tom Friedman.

Wake up and smell the coffee, 'marginal propensity to consume' and the vast numbers of Americans just getting by will eventually wake up from the lie of the Populist Stock Market. It's a rigged game.

[depakid]

26. Lovin's is far too optimistic

and his thinking is set in tired, old assumptions of neoclassical economics. For instance, the book's forecast is for a doubled-GDP in 2025!

LOL. That ain't gonna happen.

Systems can't grow without increasing energy inputs (or using them far more efficiently). The combination of diminishing returns, the HUGE scale of the industrial economy and the fact that demand is growing and supplies are flat and will rather soon be falling doesn't bode well for an economy that has to- but cannot- grow robustly enough to pay its current debts.

And of course, that's not to mention our increasing rate of liquidating stocks of natural capital and degrading what's left with increasing amounts of waste.

[bvar22]

20. K&R

This is Front Page material, and should be sent to the rags as a "guest editorial".

The Democratic Party is a BIG TENT, but there is NO ROOM for those
who advance the agenda of THE RICH (Corporate Owners) at the EXPENSE of LABOR and the POOR.

[cyberpj]

21. Dont forget the multi-millions being stashed offshore in tax-free banks.

[wildeyed]

22. Yeah, and it is beyond me why more people don't get it.

I guess they are so scared of terraist they don't notice they are being robbed. But I noticed.

[NVMojo]

24. this is a dark outlook but true ...we are on our way ...

to economic collapse, worse then the Depression.

[raccoon]

32. I hope not, but it wouldn't surprise me.

And it would be a hell of a lot worse than the 1930's Depression.

For one thing, back then, many people were small farmers, and could at least feed themselves. One set of my grandparents were like that. Dirt poor but at least they could feed themselves.

Now how many people could do that?

[IronLionZion]

27. It's like the 1920's all over again

Remind me, what happened at the end of the 1920's? Did something bad .....oh look another terror warning! Bill O'Reilly is on TV! :eyes:

Those who don't understand history, are doomed to repeat it.

[umass1993]

28. I blame the Democrats.

The repugs are just doing what they do. The Dems let them get away with it by completely alienating the evangelicals.

They made it impossible for evangelicals, who have proven themselves to be the most powerful demographic group in America, to join them in their cause. By writing these people off, they basically gave the power to the repbulicans who were more than willing to embrace the Christians.

Many Dems believe that the Christians are naturally "right-wing." This is not true on some important issues, such as global warming. Many Christians are environmentalists.

By making fun of, and insulting the Christians, the Dems have essentially taken themselves out of the game. They couldn't even give these people a modicum of respect for their social positions, and work with them to address their concerns.

In other words, the Dems were inflexible and the entire world is paying the price.

BTW: I consider myself atheist/pragmatist. There are many things I dislike about the evangelicals, but I understand that, in a democracy, you can't get anything done without a majority.

[ramapo]

29. I blame Repubs & Dems equally

Sure Bush and his cabal have opened the doors wider than ever but the Dems have basically gone along. After all, they feed at the same trough.

The giveaway started in earnest back with Ronnie Raygun. Clinton is responsible for his share...lower CAFE standards, H1B visas, NAFTA to name a few. At least he didn't distort the tax system.

And who lets the Dems and Repubs steal us blind? The apathetic, uneducated, and nonresponsive American people.

We allow the health insurance mess. Look at the uproar when Clinton tried to fix it. Here we are TEN years later.

Taxes...Ha...people are fools and accept the big giveaways to the rich in return for a few bucks.

And so on and so on....

[umass1993]

30. Remember the uproar when Clinton

raised the price of gasoline 4.6 cents. Now, if gas goes up 4.6 cents, nobody even bats an eye. If we change the price willingly, then it is a horrible fate, if it gets stuck to us, then it's OK.