Starvation: A Great Business Opportunity

This explains the complete and utter moral and ethical bankruptcy of predatory capitalism, the categorical imperative to put profit above all else, above the value of human life and beyond common human decency.

Silly proletariat, you thought "Hunger Games" a metaphor?

Why should those who hold the capital dictate the ability of other humans to buy food?

Simple human decency requires some socialism to get food to hungry people.

Glad we heard lots about the coming global food crisis at the Republican't convention.  Guess the billionaire elites just assume their grandchildren will still eat filet mignons while the rest of the world has to become vegetarians.

Not to rail against meat consumption-bought a 2 pack of ribeyes on sale for my steaks for the month--but producing the quantity to over feed our fat Western asses, generalizing from my own posterior, for maximum profit for the middlemen, the commodity funds speculator, does not efficiently allocate food resources if we judge the provision of food by whether or not the system prevents famine.

[Our current industrial food system, he notes, clearly demonstrates "how the few now rule the many."]

http://empireofdirt77.blogspot.com/2011/06/eric-schlosser-food-system-based-on.html 

[Barclays has made as much as half a billion pounds in two years from speculating on food staples such as wheat and soya, prompting allegations that banks are profiting handsomely from the global food crisis.

Barclays is the UK bank with the greatest involvement in food commodity trading and is one of the three biggest global players, along with the US banking giants Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, research from the World Development Movement points out.

Last week the trading giant Glencore was attacked for describing the global food crisis and price rises as a "good" business opportunity.

The extent of Barclays' involvement in food speculation comes to light as new figures from the World Bank show that global food prices hit an all-time high in July, with poor harvests in the US and Russia pushing up the average worldwide cost of staples by an unprecedented 10 per cent in a month.

The extent of just one bank's involvement in agricultural markets will add to concerns that food speculation could help push basic prices so high that they trigger a wave of riots in the world's poorest countries, as staples drift out of their populations' reach.]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/barclays-makes-500m-betting-on-food-crisis-8100011.html

Say It, Cenk!

Cenk Uygur writing at Huffpost:
[{T}he real action isn't at the convention. It's at Cracker Bay. That's the name of the yacht where the Romney team just hosted 50 partiers, including some of his top donors. This was one of about a dozen events outside of the convention where they had private meetings with donors giving more than $1 million dollars to his campaign. Over $1 million a piece. Now, where do you think the real policy gets made?...

"It was a really nice event. These are good supporters," said billionaire Wilbur Ross, an energy industry executive, according to ABC News. I bet it was. Mitt Romney just revealed his energy plan a couple of days ago. Are you going to be surprised to find out that it massively helps energy companies? A really nice event is where you pay a million bucks and you get billions back if the candidate you supported wins the presidency....

It's clear what Mitt Romney owes these people. What do you think he owes you? Ann Romney said that Mitt was a man who would not fail. She's right; he will not fail his donors. He is a good businessman, so he will give them the service they paid for.

They're so brazen the boat they were meeting on was flying a Cayman Islands flag. As one local put it, even their yacht doesn't want to pay taxes.] emphasis added
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cenk-uygur/mitt-romney-yacht_b_1842680.html?utm_hp_ref=daily-brief?utm_source=DailyBrief&utm_campaign=083012&utm_medium=email&utm_content=BlogEntry&utm_term=Daily%20Brief

Willard Sells His Soul

Whatever tattered, tired, tawdry shred of a human soul he had left, Willard Mitt Romney mortgaged to the masters of Mammon--those who hate the New Deal and all the programs which helped ordinary people without great riches--who will if given the chance eviscerate Social Security for my nieces and nephews and other future retirees, slash Medicare and throw seniors to the wolves of the free (rapacious) market of for profit health insurance. and just generally screw the 88% by repealing such things as workplace safety rules which save lives.

He did this by picking Paul "Pretty Boy" Ryan, class warrior, WI, as his running mate, Paul Ryan the author of a budget so pernicious it only finds support because people can't bring themselves to believe the evil of it.

So Sunday will deluge me with TV talking heads on the courage of the pick and how the United States must make tough choices to combat deficits.

These over inflated Easter Island statue sized egos will opine shared sacrifice, which to them means keeping their slice of President Cheney's tax cuts and making no cuts to a bloated military budget with forces set to face a World War 3 which will never come, means shredding whatever little we have left of any safety net and throwing more families on the streets of America the Beautiful.

[Leave it to Willard Romney, international man of principle, to get himself bullied into being bold and independent.

Make no mistake. In his decision to make Paul Ryan, the zombie-eyed granny-starver from Wisconsin, his running mate, Romney finally surrendered the tattered remnants of his soul not only to the extreme base of his party, but also to extremist economic policies, and to an extremist view of the country he seeks to lead. This is unimaginable to those of us who lived under Romney's barely perceptible stewardship of the Commonwealth (God save it!). If he'd even hinted that he agreed with a fraction of a smidgen of a portion of the policies on which Ryan has built his career, Romney would have been hanging from the Sacred Cod by the middle of 2005. And it's hard not to notice that the way the decision got leaked -- in the dead of a Friday night, with the Olympics still going on, after two weeks in which Romney and his campaign had demonstrated all the political skills of a handball -- fairly dripped with flopsweat...

And Gloria Borger ran a pre-taped interview in which she seemed to be struggling with the issue of whether it would be unprofessional to ask Paul Ryan to prom...]http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/The_Ryan_Pick

You Too Can Make $5.5 Million Per Hour

The beauty of modern capitalism will allow you unlimited opportunities to create wealth for yourself, and with the right tax advice and offshore tax avoidance havens, pay less taxes than ordinary schmucks.

Follow my easy steps to wealth and obscene profits:

Get job as head of head of utility company.

Work one day.

Resign.

Walk away with $44 million in severance pay.

Yes, that makes a great deal for the schmucks who own the stocks in their 401k accounts.

Free market capitalism rules!

Release Romney's Tax Returns

[Mitt Romney is running for president, so it's important we know everything about him.

In particular, I think it's time we learned what's in his tax returns. To date he has released only one year of returns for 2010. What on earth is he trying to hide?

We already know Romney has invested untold millions in multiple tax heavens around the world, a ploy that allows the super-rich to evade US tax laws, but the staggering sums that are piling up - he has $30 million dollars in the Caymen Islands alone - are a bizarre and insulting precedent for a United States presidential candidate.

We also know that Romney appears to believe that taxes are for the little people. We know this because in 2010 and 2011 he paid $6.2 million in federal tax on $42.5 million in income. That means he paid a tax rate of about $15 percent, which is a rate that most middle class tax payers can only dream of.

So if there's nothing to hide, and we assume there isn't, why is he hiding it? Has he in fact made use of offshore havens to defer, or avoid paying, federal income taxes? Did he buy any illegal or gray area tax shelters? Has an IRS audit ever uncovered any serious problems with any of his tax returns? Has it all been on the up and up, has it all been legal?


These are pretty simple questions and they deserve an answer from anyone who outs themselves forward to be commander in chief.
We already know that at Bain Romney made use of the 'covered interest' tax loophole that allowed him to treat his fees there as if they were capital gains (15% tax) rather than wages (35% tax). That's perfectly legal, if not perfectly patriotic. But how many people are evening reporting on that yet?]  emphasis added
Read more: http://www.irishcentral.com/story/ent/manhattan_diary/why-is-mitt-romney-hiding-his-tax-returns-161578585.html#ixzz1zxItP8Tv

Do You Have a 100 Million IRA?

Common man Willard Romney does.


[His IRA raises two key questions, both of which his campaign has consistently declined to answer: How, despite a $6000 legal limit on annual contributions to an IRA, did Romney’s IRA grow to over $100 million? And did he avoid any U.S. taxes on its enormous returns?]
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/07/romney-offshore-ira-tax-avoidance.php?ref=fpb


"What is Mitt Romney hiding?"  http://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-mitt-romney-hiding-2012-7

Independence Day

The 1% Replies, Proud of Perfidy

[Someone at the Board of Trade is getting cheeky with the Occupy Chicago protests. This photo was taken by someone at the protests. It shows offices at the Board of Trade Building eight stories up with "We Are The 1%" taped to the windows. If only someone could hurl rocks that high.]
http://chicagoist.com/2011/10/05/board_of_trade_has_a_message_for_oc.php