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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMeet the Billionaires Using Their Immense Dough to Make Life Miserable for Ordinary Americans
http://www.alternet.org/economy/meet-billionaires-using-their-immense-dough-make-life-miserable-ordinary-americans***SNIP
1) Pete Petersons deficit/debt scare campaign and his ongoing effort to gut Social Security and other entitlements. Leading every list of billionaires pushing an issue is billionaire Pete Peterson and his forever war on government doing things to make our lives better, especially Social Security. Peterson leads the list because of reports of his pledge to spend $1 billion on his pet issue.
***SNIP
2) Billionaire John D. Arnolds attack on public-employee pensions. Have you heard that the biggest problem facing our states, counties and cities is the bloated, lavish, insane level of money that goes to public-employee pensions? Of course you have, and that's partly thanks to billionaire John Arnold. Arnold got his start at Enron trading natural gas derivatives. After Enron he used his Enron money to form an energy-trading hedge fund. Now he is using his fortune to fund various philanthropic causes, including helping to keep Head Start running when Republicans recently shut down the government. Unfortunately he has also dedicated part of his fortune to gutting public-employee pensions.
***SNIP
3) Charles Munger Jr. (near-billionaire and son of a billionaire) bankrolled Californias Proposition 20 in 2010 to create a citizens redistricting committee that took the process of drawing political districts out of the hands of Californias politicians. Munger and many Republicans believed this would immediately turn the state over to the Republicans because the districts were gerrymanderedriggedto have a majority of safe Democratic-voting districts.
***SNIP
4) Billionaire Tom Perkins laid out his own solution to the democracy problem the other day in an interview at the Commonwealth Club INFORUM in San Francisco, saying, The Tom Perkins system is: You dont get to vote unless you pay a dollar of taxes, Perkins said. But what I really think is, it should be like a corporation. You pay a million dollars in taxes, you get a million votes. Hows that?
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Meet the Billionaires Using Their Immense Dough to Make Life Miserable for Ordinary Americans (Original Post)
xchrom
Feb 2014
OP
A great shortening using the good doctor's invention would cure them of their problem.
hobbit709
Feb 2014
#2
I'm partial to giving him a good old-fashioned Iranian horse whipping myself. nt
MrScorpio
Feb 2014
#7
Turbineguy
(37,374 posts)1. They seem to get plenty of voluntary help
from people who are not rich.
B Calm
(28,762 posts)4. yeah, but someday they hope to be rich too. . .
hobbit709
(41,694 posts)2. A great shortening using the good doctor's invention would cure them of their problem.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)5. Procrustes would be pleased n/t
Le Taz Hot
(22,271 posts)3. I don't know about the others
but #3 actually worked quite well. His intention may have been to get more Republicans elected but it actually has worked to achieve a much more fair and logical system. If you look at California's districts before 2010 and after, you'll see a vast difference and districts that actually make sense.
Nanjing to Seoul
(2,088 posts)6. Billionaire Tom Perkins needs to be ball gagged.
MrScorpio
(73,631 posts)7. I'm partial to giving him a good old-fashioned Iranian horse whipping myself. nt
He can use the ball gag as a bit.
GoCubsGo
(32,097 posts)9. I prefer the Mussolini treatment--for the whole lot of them.
It's the only way to deal with a fascist.
Gary 50
(382 posts)8. Where are the Koch brothers?
socialist_n_TN
(11,481 posts)10. Too bad we can't have a pack of playing cards........
(like they had in Iraq) showing 52 of these bastards and what they look like. I know this only talks about 9, but I'm sure there are 43 more of them out there.
jsr
(7,712 posts)11. Someone should make a digital poster and make it viral.
Hotler
(11,452 posts)12. These people need to be thankful that .....
the American people are not putting it to them like the people protesting in the Ukraine are doing against the PTB over there.
P.S. Morning Xchrom.