Greedy corporations are plotting against President Obama and the country

[redstate_democrat]

Does anyone else wonder how the hell shit hit the fan so rapidly in the past six months? At the beginning of 2008, before President Obama was even believed to have a glimmer of a chance, the economy was presumed to be "sound". Sometime after it became clear that President Obama would win this election going away, the economy all of a sudden hit the glass going 160 mph. What the fuck happened?

Economists say that the so-called "credit crunch" has had a domino effect on the rest of the economy and that this "credit crunch" has been caused by the foreclosure crisis. As a result, the government has poured billions of dollars into Wall Street investment banks to shore up these mismanaged entities, supposedly recapitalizing them. Has this even done anything to affect the "credit crunch" or stop foreclosures? People still can't get loans. The amount of money being poured into these banks should have effectively wiped clean the so-called losses they've had as a result of the foreclosures. What the hell is really going on? I don't believe for one minute these banks are experiencing a so-called credit crisis. They're still collecting mortgage payments from a majority of Americans. They're still collecting credit card payments at exorbitant interest rates. They're still making money hand over fist. Just because they SAY they can't make loans doesn't mean they actually can't. How does one explain Citigroup buying a $50 million dollar jet while at the same time taking a multi-billion dollar bailout from the government?

They are nothing more than a bunch of Robber Barons. History is repeating itself right before our eyes. Milton Friedman would be proud if he were alive today. They have manufactured this crisis to sabotage the incoming Administration, specifically pro-worker, pro-regulation, and fair tax initiatives Democrats usually advocate when in power.

Proof? Just this week, Microsoft, Home Depot, Caterpillar, Sprint, and Pfizer have announced layoffs. All of a sudden, they are revising their quarterly reports and OMFG! there are losses they hadn't noticed before.

I don't fucking think so. There is blatant sabotage taking place here to affect the 2010 election cycle. They are sabotaging America.

With the revelation today regarding Home Depot's involvement in trying to take down the Employee Free Choice Act, I'm not surprised that Home Depot has announced layoffs. Why not? The co-founder of Home Depot was on a conference call basically demanding that business sink money into a campaign to stop the EFCA. These same companies, to be sure, were also holding out their hands for a bailout. AIG was among the companies on the call.

Bailout Recipients Hosted Call to Defeat Key Labor Bill

Three days after receiving $25 billion in federal bailout funds, Bank of America Corp. hosted a conference call with conservative activists and business officials to organize opposition to the U.S. labor community's top legislative priority.

Participants on the October 17 call -- including at least one representative from another bailout recipient, AIG -- were urged to persuade their clients to send "large contributions" to groups working against the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), as well as to vulnerable Senate Republicans, who could help block passage of the bill.

Bernie Marcus, the charismatic co-founder of Home Depot, led the call along with Rick Berman, an aggressive EFCA opponent and founder of the Center for Union Facts. Over the course of an hour, the two framed the legislation as an existential threat to American capitalism, or worse.

"This is the demise of a civilization," said Marcus. "This is how a civilization disappears. I am sitting here as an elder statesman and I'm watching this happen and I don't believe it."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/27/bank-of-america-hosted-an_n_161248.html

Home Depot wants to stop the EFCA. Home Depot lays off workers during an economic crisis. They are creating a crisis to justify why their particular wish should be granted. You can't possibly pass the EFCA now, not with this economy and worker cuts!!!1

Microsoft laid off workers. Microsoft!! That's like the government laying off workers. What could they possibly be pissed off about?

US' stricter H-1B plan may hit Indian outsourcing firms

...

"The Durbin-Grassley bill would require all employers seeking to hire an H-1B visa
holder to pledge that they have made a good-faith effort to hire American workers first and that the H-1B visa holder will not displace an American worker," senator Grassley's office said in a statement.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Visa_Power/US_stricter_H-1B_plan_may_hit_Indian_outsourcing_firms/articleshow/4039034.cms

Yes, faced with the possibility of having to actually hire American workers and pay a prevailing wage to outsourced workers, they are doing their part, acting as just another corporate cog in the manufactured crisis machine.

Then look at the auto manufacturers. All of a sudden they don't have money and need a bailout as well. Now they can close plants, lay off workers, bust union contracts, and it's no problem because they're in crisis mode.

What we have here is corporations demanding the largest transfer of wealth to them in U.S. history. History is repeating itself, but on a much grander scale.

Is it possible that some corporations are actually conspiring with each other to manufacture these crises to effect the policy making decisions of the new Administration? Listening to the tapes of that anti-EFCA conference call, I have no doubt these thieves would do so. They were willing to sink money in front groups to effect an election. I have no doubt that some of them are taking advantage of an existing problem and purposefully expanding it into crisis mode. They are no doubt being assisted by some so-called "conservatives". These politicians are doing so with an eye on 2010.

Fuck em. Fuck em all.

[underpants]

1. Hmmm why does the name General Smedley Butler come to mind?

:think:

[redstate_democrat]

3. As I said, history repeating itself.

Corporations did it in the 19th century, the 20th century, and they'll keep doing it as long as the worker continues to be treated as a fucking leper in this country.

[omega minimo]

2. One Question

WHY ARE YOU SQUAWKING ABOUT THIS NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!????????????!11111!!!!!!!!!

[redstate_democrat]

4. What the hell are YOU talking about?

[omega minimo]

9. Better too late than never

:eyes:

WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU LIVE?

THAT'S what I'm talking about :hi:

[FarLeftRage]

5. You know of course, that they will push themselves

into extinction... people can only take so much shit from these worthless fucks before they find that they have nothing to lose but their chains...

[Enthusiast]

26. I disagree. The media is telling people

what to believe. Before this is over the electorate will believe Obama is responsible for all this mess.

[liberalmuse]

6. I'm really not surprised.

I've suspected for years that Bush and his corporatists have been propping up the economy and fudging the numbers. I knew that the next President, likely a Democrat would experience the whole phony house of cards tumbling down upon his swearing in. I guess they couldn't prop it up until then.

[Double T]

7. Ya say YOU want a REVOLUTION?

The greatest economic depression is brought to YOU by corporate america and wall street. Never forget IT!!

[Celebration]

8. Sorry, I don't buy it

Sans the economic problems, McCain had a decent chance to win. Remember when McCain said the economy was sound?

Anyway, if they wanted to sabotage Obama in this manner, they would have put it off until after the election. In fact, it would hit about a year after it did.

Every single person in the country knows that the economic problems are not due to Obama.

[Atman]

12. Very naive response

You way oversimplify the op. The depths of what we're entering into won't be fully realized for a few months. This financial "meltdown" was, indeed, well planned. They boldly assumed it before Bush became anointed, just as they did "another Pearl Harbor."

Home Depot, the auto makers, any labor group.. we are truly back in the "old days" of which the Republicans speak so fondly. They planned this as meticulously as they've planned every other move they've made...in lockstep.

It is waaaaaaaay too convenient for the nation to have been doing just swell during Bush's reign of error, but completely fell into the shitter as soon as Bush's term was up.

Suddenly, Iraq is awesome, troops can come home (after a layover in Afghanistan); Gitmo will be shuttered (but angry ex-Git-cons may move into your neighborhood and launch attacks against the local Piggly Wiggly); torture is kinda illegal again; the money-printing industry is a shining beacon in Obama's FDR-like strategy to put America back to work. Heck, even Rush Limbaugh is called out by the president! Called out! If Obama were a DUer, he'd have a warning in his inbox as we speak!

Just sayin'.

Don't be so quick to accept the official explanations about anything.

.

[pampango]

29. Agreed. During the election, how many repubs complained that McCain

didn't have a chance because of the economic crisis. Heck, he was even ahead in the polls in September, until the crisis (and his stupid statement about the economy being sound) exposed him and repub economic philosophy).

I heard conservative pundits claim at the time that the timing of the economic crisis was a Democratic conspiracy to win the election (though they never had an explanation as to how we could do that even if we wanted to) by shifting the focus to the economy. :)

[Celebration]

37. Yeah, LOL this thread

You would have to at least agree that their timing was off, if you wanted to invoke a Republican conspiracy on this.

[tritsofme]

10. Or maybe we are smack dab in the middle of a severe recession?

And these are things that happen during such a downturn?

But I guess big conspiracy theories are more interesting.

[redstate_democrat]

11. Everything is a conspiracy theory until it appears in the newspaper as an expose.

[uponit7771]

13. This recession was caused and is NOT part of a normal business cycle of ups or downs. They KNEW ...

...MBS's weren't being rated correctly by Moodys, Fitch and S&P and the government ALLOWING 30 to 1 ratios on credit default swaps was criminal and fuckin stupid.

My issues with dems is a good portion of them knew this and said nothing relative to the storm, they should've lit their hair on fire and ran in front of every camera they could.

[redstate_democrat]

17. Thank you for mentioning the leverging fiasco that was allowed to fester with the big Wall Street

investment banks. Why were the "chosen few" on Wall Street allowed to leverage in such a criminal way?

[uponit7771]

23. Greenspan thought they would act in their own best interest & they did, screwed the rest of America

...good while doing such. I believe Greenspan when he said "free markets" theories had a fatal flaw in them and it establishes my point of "small government" people being myopic. Free Market people are very short sighted IMHO, when you ask them what effects their "small gov" will have on the middle class they usually say none because they haven't thought of it or could care less.

These dumb ass's REALLY though "free markets" worked long term, the montra of fiscal conservatism should be dead because we've tried supply side economics and it only works for a short while and we've tried "free markets" and IT only works a short while before either one of them start hurting the middle class.

[KakistocracyHater]

14. This is SO a 1930s movie, without the knowledge of who

is responsible for how we got here, where's the porky boss puffing out his chest & trying to intimidate people into obeying him-even though this mess is his fault, & the rest of his Country Club Crowd? Where's Hollywood on reality? Oh, wait......nevermind.

[Triana]

15. Disaster Capitalism - not only is it possible, it is most probable that is . . .

. . . exactly what the thieving bastards are doing.

[avaistheone1]

22. Most definitely.

[wroberts189]

39. 100% probable n/t

[Life Long Dem]

16. Is BOA going under? Blocking this bill?

To prevent hiring people here?

[redstate_democrat]

18. The article didn't say BOA was pushing blocking the EFCA

From what I understand after reading it BOA is actually ambivalent towards it. They understand that if people unionize they make more money and receive more benefits. In the banking business, that predicament actually works to their favor. Now, when you start talking about raising the reserve rate, capping interest rates, tougher regulations, more government oversight, higher taxes, then the banks will have a problem with you. They are anticipating all of the above.

[Life Long Dem]

19. Okay... my fault... I linked opposition to the top legislative priority to the Durbin-Grassley bill.

That would have been a horror show for any company.

[JeffR]

20. If there were only one post on the "economic crisis" I could rec

it would be this one. Your take on all this strikes me as clear-eyed and succinct. I hope somewhere in the ranks of Obama's economic team, someone smart reads this and makes sure to pass it up the line. It needs to be read by people with power. Now.

[democracy1st]

21. K & R my friend K & R

[Norrin Radd]

24. kr

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

25. Maybe it's takeover time.

[harun]

36. Takeover as in the Corporations?

If you look at a lot of what Paulson has done already, that is it. He is buying up ton's of cheap bank stocks. Then when the gov't says jump they have to listen if the gov't's share in the company is large enough.

Marx was right about the evolution of Capitalism in to Communism (if left to its own devices, which during Bush it was). Except the U.S. brand of Communism is a commune of the Super-Rich, with the peons serving them.

[MadHound]

27. I seriously doubt that the corporations are throwing it to sabotage Obama

First off, the economic basics in this country have been shaky for a couple of years. Second, we actually went into this recession over a year ago, before Obama had even won the first election. Third, if this economy hadn't gone south when it did, McCain could have very well had won the election. Instead he was shown up for the irrelevant idiot that he is. Fourth, the credit crunch isn't because the banks don't have cash, it's because they simply aren't trusting anybody at this point, including each other, thus they aren't making loans to the vast majority of borrowers, including their fellow banks.

You could see this crisis coming, if you knew what you were looking for, years ago. The housing market was a huge bubble, one that was built off another huge bubble, the tech bubble. As with any bubble, sooner or later it has to pop and when it does, it's going to be messy. Well, now we're dealing with that mess.

Besides, it you look at who actually gave money to both McCain and Obama, you'll see that both the financial sector and the real estate sector gave substantially more money to Obama than to McCain.
<http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/indus.php?id=N00009638&cycle2=2008&goButt2.x=8&goButt2.y=5&goButt2=Submit>
<http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/indus.php?cycle=2008&cid=N00006424>

Why would corporations do this, donate millions and millions to a candidate that they want to see fail? It makes no sense, especially since they would get a better deal if McCain had won.

Look, I enjoy a good conspiracy theory as much as the next, but this is way too far out there even for me, especially since it flies in the face of reality.

[lonestarnot]

28. Hmmmf. You better do some more reading.

[MadHound]

30. I've done plenty of reading, I also do plenty of thinking,

And using both resources, it simply doesn't make good logical sense to say that the corporations set this entire thing up to discredit Obama, especially since it appears that it was Obama that the corporate community wanted in office.

What, some bright geniuses, foreseeing the very real possibility years ago that we would elect a black man to president this year, set about to sabotage the economy by giving out loans and easy credit to everybody? They decided to set in motion this bubble economy and timed it to pop a couple of months before the election? That they said "Hey, let's all lose a lot of cash, have some of us go under, and thus wreck the economy all to sabotage this guy named Obama, who, as we sit here and conspire, is still a state legislator in Illinois":eyes:

This makes the 911 MIHOP contingent look sane, even mainstream.

Do you realize just what it would take to throw our economy in the ditch, and how long it would take to accomplish this? Just how many people would be have to be involved in order to pull this sort of thing off? It would dwarf the number of people needed to pull off the Grassy Knoll in the Kennedy assassination.

Why is it so hard to accept the fact that this current meltdown was caused by greed meeting stupidity, both on the part of the lenders and the borrowers? Hell, following this theory it would require that Clinton and the Congresses throughout the nineties be in on the planning, since they helped the deregulation process along in a major way.

Please, put the pipe down and back away. Your paranoia is running waaaay too deep.

[lonestarnot]

34. Grasshopper...

Who controls 65% of the wealth in this country now?

[wyldwolf]

31. I appreciate the passion that goes into OPs like this... but...

... as Obama said, "In distilled form, though, the explanations of both the right and the left have become mirror images of each other. They are stories of conspiracy, of America being hijacked by an evil cabal. Like all good conspiracy theories, both tales contain just enough truth to satisfy those predisposed to believe in them, without admitting any contradictions that might shake up those assumptions (see posts #8 and #27 in this thread). Their purpose is not to persuade the other side but to keep their bases agitated and assured of the rightness of their respective causes--and lure just enough new adherents to beat the other side into submission."

[lonestarnot]

35. Of those corporations who announced layoffs of nearly 70 k people yesterday,

how many of those companies were red?

[DCBob]

32. Is this an Onion piece?

There is no grand conspiracy. You sound as bad aa the wacko righties who claim Democrats sabotaged the economy to win the election. Get a grip.

[BeyondGeography]

33. Was the Trilateral Commission in on this deal?!?!?!?!?!?!?

[wroberts189]

38. And the strangest part for me is....

The whole purpose of a corp. is too make money and if your a CEO you have a fiduciary duty to do whats going to make you the most profits ... even if all of mankind be damned.

This is so dumb ..and so obvious the ramifications its unbelievable.

So its like all of a sudden people are realizing that this corporate charter thing ..well its like aka "The Blob" ..they eat everything in their path to the fastest profit.

Then ...they went ahead and gave these entities human rights ...so called "freedom of speech" which meant they could get political and donate to those who would advance their agenda against the common good..

Allowing any corporation political influence is a recipe for disaster.

They already have their rights.. each employee from the CEO down can vote and can write like the rest of us... why does this paper entity become more powerful politically then the individual American?? How do they get to go right into congress and demand all these things including our tax money?

Corporatism ..Fascism

Its all so obvious and out there in the open.. yet the sheeple let it continue to go on and say "baa baa"

K&R