Doggone if this ain’t a great time to be rich and powerful. ‘Course you can’t be one without the other. So for you “blessed” 2%, whatta time to be alive and a God-fearing, patriotic ‘Merican’ (‘er, white ‘Merican).
In just the last few days, in reading and observing the print, electronic and Online media, one example after another surfaced that, jobless rate, starving children, people without health insurance, stagnant wages, a couple of festering wars, an incendiary middle east, few new revenues, massive services cuts, an idiotically recalcitrant Republican party notwithstanding, none of these “conditions” have seemed to impact the wealthy corporations or individuals in the least.
Take the local financial page headline that caught my eye. “U.S. banks’ earnings skyrocket.” How’s that for rewarding probably the sleaziest business sector in all the land for serial mortgage cheating and lawbreaking during the housing bubble that nearly brought down the U.S. economy. So while you’re yelling “2 Big Macs to go” just after moving out of your foreclosed home, the bank big-wig who caused you the misery of losing your home, is doubtless dining at a 3-star Michelin Red Guide restaurant in some glamorous European destination instead of sharing a prison cell with a heavily tattooed gang-banger. One final thought. A former Federal Reserve Counsel observed, “The divide between the bigs and everybody else is just enormous.”
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“Am proud to be an ‘Merican (‘er, white ‘Merican).”
And for all that talk from low paid Tea Party goobers about how we overtax the rich, this little two-paragrapher from the financial page: Wealthier households benefit significantly more than lower earners from big tax breaks for such deductions as mortgage interest and charitable giving according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Of the 10 major tax breaks, the top one-fifth of the wealthiest U.S. households get half of them. Another stat, the top 1% of earners rake in 17% of these breaks. “Am proud to be an ‘Merican (‘er, white ‘Merican).”
Looking at non-‘Mericans, who should pop up than the Chinese. Smithfield Foods Inc. a biggie U.S. pork producer has received a $4.72 billion purchase overture (pending federal review) from Shuanghui Holdings Ltd. The majority shareholder of China’s largest meat processor, Shuanghui, that has been in the food safety doghouse since 2011 when it sold pork containing clenbuterol, a chemical that can harm humans. It’s an odd deal really. Smithfield insists it’s not about importing the tainted reputation of Shuanghui Chinese pork, but about exporting. “Yeah, that’s the ticket, we’ll just be exporting; exporting I tell yuh!”
Smithfield is a beautiful fit with the Chinese, with its infamous history of fines and questionable business practices. The consumer friendly site, Food and Water Watch profiled Smithfield a few years ago. It was a greedy acquisition machine that also sought cheap labor in Poland and Romania. It is currently the largest hog producer and processor in the world. At its Utah subsidiary, 500,000 hogs produce 8 times more excrement waste than the entire metro area of Salt Lake City. At nearly 1,500 owned or contracted farm facilities in North Carolina (40% of all state hog farmers) millions of gallons of waste have contaminated area rivers and streams. On many farms, Hogs are kept in the most inhumane conditions imaginable. They’re housed in brutal and harmful gestation crates and huge warehouse buildings where the animals never see the sun and most cannot even turn around.
It should come as no surprise that Smithfield was fined $12.6 million in 1997 for violation of the Clean Water Act and another $5.4 in 2004. There have been other fines levied and a recently settled 15-year labor war. Degradation of the environment, animals and humans is just another cost of doing business with this outfit.
In 2006, Smithfield attempted to purchase its largest competitor, Premium Standard Farms. To his credit, Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley objected on antitrust grounds. The antitrust division of the G.W. Bush Justice Department took up the question. Predictably, the fact that the new acquisition would make Smithfield larger than the next 8 hog producers combined was of little concern to the corporate-owned administration. In 2007, Smithfield was given the green light with no limitations, although the Obama DOJ ultimately did levy a $900,000 penalty for the action.
Here’s another corporate headline worthy of our attention.To wit: “Plastics company picks Upstate.” There are about 280,000 solid citizens in the 807 square mile county of my residence. Over 16% live below the poverty line and the average per capita wage is in the neighborhood of $22,000. The first line of the local newspaper account was “A California-based plastics company is creating jobs in County.” Well, yes; about 22 jobs over the next four years. And a plastics manufacturing company? The company, headquartered in California, is investing a piddling million bucks in the facility. That’s not much for a manufacturing concern. I wonder how much taxpayer money went for incentives?
Environmental Health News (EHN) has a wonderful report on the potential dangers to humans and various species wrought from our huge reliance on plastics.
EHN’s reports on outcomes of various human and animal studies of plastic conducted worldwide are concerning. Among the findings is the unalterable fact that chemicals added to plastics are absorbed by human bodies and some of these chemicals are nothing to mess with.
Quoting EHN: “Evidence is mounting that the chemical building blocks that make plastics so versatile are the same components that might harm people and the environment. And its production and disposal contribute to an array of environmental problems, too. Plastic buried deep in landfills can leach harmful chemicals that spread into groundwater.”
About 93% of you have detectable rates of the chemical bisphenol (BPA) found in linings of food and beverage cans. BPA can lead to increases in heart disease and diabetes according to studies cited by EHN. Other chemicals in the plastic process can bring incalculable harm to people (especially infants) and the environment. Of course the goobers could give a s**t less until they’re hooked up to Oxygen and sucking in 30 meds a day.
Not to worry, goobers; right-wing corporate-worshiping Republican legislators will see to it that nothing happens to lessen the chemical threats to the population from the plastics industry.
And finally, one more link in the endless chain of corporate obscenities. Exxon CEO, Rex Tillerson (who made $35 million in 2011), sneered at environmental activists who recently requested that the company reduce emissions from its products. A later shareholder vote reinforced the CEO’s “let ’em breathe polluted air” mindset by rejecting the activist’s environment and people-friendly proposal by a 3-1 vote.
There was another 4-1 vote that made the shareholders look like even grander fools, but I don’t want to embarrass my fellow humans by making it public.
And the beat of greedy, irresponsible and indifferent capitalists goes on!
Raised rural & small town, then lived in N.Y., Chicago & LA. Widely traveled. Returned from world wandering to pursue media life of anchorman/reporter and major, medium and small market talk radio. Highly active in politics. Once worked as orderly & security in Mens Lock Ward for the Criminally Insane at a state institution. Much more rational population than current Teapublicans. Great concern for country run by and for the extreme wealthy. The inhumane current running through this country has no precedent in modern history.
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