本文发表在 rolia.net 枫下论坛Former Managing Director,Goldman Sachs Nomi Prins:
Once upon a time, we knew in this country we had a great depression, and we had a stock market crash in 1929 followed by several years of 25 % unemployment , of corporations declaring bankruptcy, of people in the streets on bread lines.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt(FDR):
I pledge myself to a Nw Deal for the American people.

Narrator:
In the depths of the Great Depression,President Roosevelt's New Deal put millions back to work, provided unemployment insurance,created Social Security and made easier for workers to join unions and bargain collectively.

Nomi Prins:
What FDR and that government had the balls to do was enact legislation that really took command of the Wall Street environment and said," You know what? You can't speculate with other people's money."

Coming out of the Great Depression,just three laws fundamentally altered the course of America's history.

The first one, FDID Insurance, make it safe to put money in banks.
The second one,Glass-Steagall, try to separate the risk-taking on Wall Street from your local community bank.
And the third one, SEC regulations, provide some cops to watch the robbers.

Out of that what we got was 50 years of economic peace.
No financial panics, no meltdowns.
And during that 50 years, we built a strong and prosperous middle class in America.

Narrator:
After World War II, the New Deal evolved into a "Great Deal" for the American people.
Growing prosperity and social justice seemed to be everyone's destiny as the U.S. economy exploded into the greatest economic machine in history.
There has never been anything like the America of today, a nation so productive that the typical worker's family is able to afford conveniences and luxuries available only to the privileged few elsewhere.

The New Deal established that ordinary people had the right to protect themselves against corporate abuse.
The early 70's expanded those safeguards with the creation of agencies like the Occupational Safety and HEALTH ADMINISTRATION, whose mission was to protect workers.
The Environmental Protection Agency was created to protect human health and the environment.

CEO,American Airlines (1985-1998) Robert Crandall :
Regulation is nothing more than the imposition of a set of rules to prevent the free market from behaving in a way which is contrary to the common good.更多精彩文章及讨论，请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net

PART 3 --- THE CORPORATE OFFENSIVE

Senator Bernie Sanders:
A decision was reached by corporate America that working with unions, working with government to improve the standard of living for all people was not the right thing to do.

Big business doesn't like the government to tell it what to do.
They don't want anybody to interfere with their ability to make money in the way that they see fit.

Narrator:
In 1971,corporate leaders began to orchestrate a detailed battle plan to eliminate any government policies that might stand between them and profits.
The plan was laid out in an influential memo called :"Attack on American Free Enterprise System."

本文发表在 rolia.net 枫下论坛PART 4 --- HOW BIG BUSINESS BOUGHT OUR GOVERNMENT

Asst.Prof.,HISTORY, University of North Carolina Benjamin C. Waterhouse:

Lewis Powell was a well-respected citizen of richmond,Virginia.
He was a corporate lawyer, a partner in a prestigious corporate law firm, and friends with an executive at the Chamber of Commerce named Eugene Sydnor.
And Sydnor asked his friend if he would draft a position statement that he could submit to the Chamber of Commerce that would then sort of form the framework for how to make the organization more able to confront what they thought was a growing threat to business interests.

Narrator:
Powell's memo laid out a strategy to radically alter public perceptions,ensuring that big business interests could dominate public policy.
Powell advocated a, "vast purge" of liberal elements in society.
He saw how corporate money could own the media and talk louder than organized labor and consumer protection groups.
But for Powell, a future Supreme Court Justice, the real end game was business control of law and politics.

To make their point, the Chamber of Commerce created very clever advertising to influence public opinion.
The U.S.Chamber of Commerce and the recently formed elite Business Roundtable, and exclusive club of CEOs, joined forces to lobby Congress and push their agenda with major campaign contributions.
Their goal: To buy congressional votes to implement a corporate makeover of America.

Author,Robert Kuttner:
You had massive lobbying beginning in '76,'77,'78, for cutting taxes on rich people, trickle down economics. Cut capital gains taxes, cut dividend taxes, cut income taxes, and the economy will flourish. Some of the Democrats start drinking the Kool-Aid along with the Republicans.

1971: lobbyists in DC 175.
2008: lobbyists in DC 33000.

NARRATOR:
Next, big business set its sights on the biggest threat to their bottom line, the wages and benefits of the American workforce, especially union members, who,starting in the 1930s, had won bargaining power for wages, working conditions and benefits.
But instead of negotiation, big business wanted control.

The Powell Memo: " Businessmen should use their financial muscle to shape the politics of the country. Nor should there be reluctance to penalize politically those who oppose it."

By 1978, business outspent organized labour three to one to defeat a bill that would have made it easier for workers to join unions.
This was a critical turning point, setting in motion the decline of organized labour as a major political force and the voice of working Americans.

President of the United Auto Workers, Douglas Fraser:
I believe leaders of the business community, with few exceptions,have chosen to wage a one-sided class war today in our country, a war against working people, the unemployed, the poor, the minorities, the very young and the very old, and even many in the middle class of our society.更多精彩文章及讨论，请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net

本文发表在 rolia.net 枫下论坛PART 5 --- WEAPONS OF MASS DECEPTION

Author,Perfectly Legal David Cay Johnston:
One of the geniuses of the right in United States is they founded these 12 big Washington organizations. Institute,for the causes of their donors.

Narrator:
Heirs to six of the largest family fortunes in the United States used their private foundations to fund organizations that would promote unregulated markets.
Working in unison, the 6 families used their private foundations to shape business schools and manipulate the media.
Most of all, they wanted to restructure government to serve their own interests.

They're not think tanks. These are not academic research organizations.
These are ideological marketing organizations.

FDR 1939:
These economic royalists complain that we seek to overthrow the institutions of America.
What they really complain of is that we seek a way to take away their power.

Exec. Diretor, Center for Community Change : Deepak Bhargava
Even in the Great Depression when 25%of Americans were out of work, you had these apologists for free market fundamentalism argue against increased government spending, increased regulation, strengthening the hands of unions, stronger safety net.
The same thing is happening today.

Former Fellow, The Heritage Foundation :David Brock
The motive was ideological, putting millions of dollars into funding right wing ideas factories.
But then those ideas needed to get pushed out into the media.

Reagan Campaign Ad (1980)
My plan will give businesses tax incentives that result in plant expansion,greater output,and more jobs.
It will remove regulations that shoot up the cost of doing business.
Strong creative leadership can restore America as the mightiest industrial nation on Earth.
The time is now for Reagan.

Distinguished Senior Fellow, Demos: Robert Kuttner
It all comes together in the election of 1980, where the right had build up this powerful political, financial, intellectual infrastructure; and it all comes together under Reagan.
By the time Reagan takes office, there is an army of policy wonks who have a whole game plan that can be put into effect very,very quickly to deregulate everything that hasn't been deregulated under Carter.

NARRATOR:
America saw Ronald Reagan as someone trustworthy.
The newly elected president handed out the Heritage foundation's "Mandate for Leadership" to every member of his Cabinet.
For the next eight years, this anti-government policy guide drove the Reagan Administration's makeover of federal government from protecting the public good into working for the rich and powerful.

Author,Perfectly Legal: David Cay Johnston
Ronald cut taxes for those at the top. Instead of balancing the budget, he ran the biggest deficits in history.
Then he presided over the passage of a series of tax increases on ordinary people, only he didn't call them that.
The Washington press corps went along with the White House Calling these, "revenue enhancements."

Ronald Reagan (1981)
Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.

President, United Steelworkers: Leo Gerard
He was attacking government, attacking the institutions of government, and trying to make it as a system that doesn't work.
And in reality, rich folks don't need governments.
They live in their own gated communities, they have their own security, they swim in their own swimming pools, they go to their own private schools.
Rich people take care of themselves.

Dean,Case Western University Law School: Lawrence Mitchell
The ideology of the free market that said that if we allowed them to just use their own creativity and be able to do what they want, that the wealth they created would trickle down to create jobs and create consumer goods and make American an even richer and more prosperous society than it was.
Well, all that was beautiful theory.
The whole idea of a free market is a myth to begin with.
Markets are structured based on laws, and the real issue is who the structure benefits.

Sanders:
One of his first acts was to destroy the air traffic controllers which was a signal for all American businesses that is was open season on unionism.
They understand that it's not just about labor supporting the interests of members of labor unions, but it has been the labour movement that has supported the interests of all workers.
You wouldn't have social security, you wouldn't have unemployment compensation, you wouldn't have Medicare, you wouldn't have all of these things, which are not just for labor union members.

AT IT'S HEIGHT IN THE 1950s:
1 in 3 private sector workers were in unions.
TODAY, THAT MUMBER IS :
1 in 14 private sector workers are in unions.

Robert Kuttner:
He was able to pull off an ideological counterrevolution.
And by the time he was over, most of the New Deal had been dismantled.更多精彩文章及讨论，请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net

本文发表在 rolia.net 枫下论坛PART 6 --- MONEY TALKS

NARRATOR:
While Reagan was breaking unions and demolishing regulations, he also convinced Congress in 1981 to pass his Economic Recovery Tax Act, cutting the top tax brackets by nearly a third but raising taxes on the middle class.

By dramatically increasing the social security tax, as recommended by Alan Greenspan to Ronald Reagan, we shifted the burden of government , so that today, 70s% of Americans pay a heavier share of their income in Social Security and Medicare taxes than they do in income taxes.
And we pushed the burden down.
At the same time at the very,very top, we radically cut taxes ,so that the 1,000 richest men,women and children in America face an effective total federal tax rate, social security and income taxes, about 17 cents on the dollar, and their average income is $263 million.

After decades of lobbying driven by corporate money, the tax code is now full of loopholes and special deals that help big business avoid paying its fair share.
To avoid paying taxes, U.S. corporations have stashed more than $1.5 Trillion in offshore accounts.

Author, IT TAKES A PILLAGE: Nomi Prins
Corporations only pay 13% of the federal budget's revenues. Out of $2.5 trillion, corporations only pay 13%.

Bernie Sanders(2010):
So I just want to list some ten, the ten worst corporate tax avoidance:
Exxon Mobil, largest oil company in the world, made 19 billion in profits in 2009.
Exxon not only paid no federal income taxes,
It actually received a $156 million rebate from the IRS.

Over the past five years, while General Electric made 26 billion in profits in the United States, it received a $4.1 billion refund from the IRS.
So if you're a working stiff, you're making 30,$40,000 a year, you're paying taxes.
But if you're Chevron, and you made 10 billion in profits in 2009, you don't have to pay any taxes. You get a $19 million refund.更多精彩文章及讨论，请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net

本文发表在 rolia.net 枫下论坛PART 7 --- MANIPULATING THE MEDIA

For 38 years, the Federal Communications Commission had enforced the Fairness Doctrine, which mandated that all broadcasts over public airwaves offer a balance of viewpoints.
In 1987,Ronald Reagan stopped enforcement of the Fairness Doctrine, opening the floodgates for corporate money to talk directly to America through the media.

Former Fellow, The Heritage Foundation : David Brock
A few years ago studies were showing that of the 350 top radio markets in the country, you had something like 90% of right wing talk, and less than 10% of progressive talk.

Crandall:
Media deregulation is a big story. I think it's threat to democracy.
Most people don't have any idea what's going on.

Narrator:
After his 1992 election, Democratic President Bill Clinton continued to implement key elements of both the Powell Memo and the Heritage Foundation's prescriptions for government by and for big business.
In 1996,Clinton signed the first major overhaul of telecommunications law in 62 years.

1983: 50 major media companies
2011: 6 major media companies

Crandall:
What Rupert Murdoch thinks is more likely to be what you think than anything else.

David Brock:
They missed major stories, we know they missed major stories.
And that is all coming home to roost now.
I think the media is awful.
They don't do in-depth reporting, they distort the news story to show the most confrontational headline, they don't do in-depth news gathering.

Bush (2003):
Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.
Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminium tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production.

Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist David Cay Johnston
Twenty years ago, nobody who was in journalism thought anything of saying to a politician to his face,"Senator, stop lying to the Los Angeles Times.","General, you know that's not true, I know that's not true."
Today ,if you said something like that, you'd be fired.
We don't ask tough questions, and we have these orchestrated White House press conferences.
And Obama is actually worse than his predecessor George Bush on this issue.
If you take your financial advice from CNBC, you're gonna to broke.

You don't get the information you need, and you're pretty much on your own.
The same thing that's happened in business has happened in broadcasting.
It's just completely profit driven.更多精彩文章及讨论，请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net

本文发表在 rolia.net 枫下论坛PART 8 --- OUTSOURCING JOBS FOR PROFIT

Steelworker:
U.S. Steel is getting out of the steel business, and they're getting out of this community.
They're saying,"Goodbye, we've had enough, there's no more left, we've squeezed the grape, we're going on to greener pastures."

President,United Steelworkers :Leo Gerard:
We've seen the acceleration of the hollowing out of America as the most important and powerful industrial society on earth.

Narrator:
Since 1973 approximately 40 million good-paying American jobs with benefits have been shipped overseas or dismantled by corporations, boosting their own profits at working Americans' expense.
Thanks to decades of policy shaped by corporate money, there was nothing to stop them.

Faux:
There is this notion that this was only a Republican villainy, in fact, much of what happened during the 8 years of Bill Clinton.

Bill Clinton (1993):
We seek a new and more open global trading system not for its own sake but for our own sake.

Vice-Chairman, Federal Reserve, Clinton Admin. Alan Blinder
I supported NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) then, I supported NAFTA now,for the same reasons. The main one is I, like most economists, generically favour trade
liberalization because trade leads to gains on both sides.

As Jorge Castaneda who was later Finance Minister of Mexico once said, he said, NAFTA was an arrangement between the rich and powerful of all three countries leaving ordinary people out.

Exec. Director, Center for Community Change Deepak Bhargava:
What that really means, in simple language,is that corporations are able to move anywhere in the world they want to seek cheap labor and exploit people, and use that as leverage against workers here in the United States of America.

1992 Presidential Candidate Ross Rerot:
Now, if you just want to get down to brass tacks, if your are paying 12,13,14$ an hour for factory workers, and your can move your factory south of the border, pay a dollar an hour for your labor, have no healthcare that is the most expensive single element in making a car, have no environmental controls, no pollution controls, and no retirement, and you don't care about anything but making money, there will be a giant sucking sound going south .

Faux:
If you look at the statistics since NAFTA, in all three countries, wages of workers have been stagnant; the productivity of workers has skyrocketed; and workers in all three countries have gone into debt in order to maintain their living standards.

Senator Bernie Sanders
We also saw a massive movement toward unfettered free trade.
And the theory of that was that if you create trade agreements with China, where people are paid 40,50 cents an hour, and you shut down plants in America, and you move to China or you move to Mexico, that, in some way that we haven't quite figured out yet, this is gonna be good for the American worker.

For 20 years ,the American public believed we could simultaneously outsource all of our jobs and simultaneously maintain our quality of life at home.
We thought we could do that . Guess what, no such thing.

We are eviscerating our manufacturing capability, all in the name of lower prices, all in the name of free trade, all in the name of the market always knows best.
The market does't know best.

Computer Programmer Kim Berry:
Through the 1980s, I was living the American dream, and that was really the high point of my career, and that was really the high point of my career. I didn't know it at the time .
But I was earning $50 an hour as a consultant in '97 at HP. When I left HP to do a dot com venture and HP at the time said, that's great, if it doesn't work out, you always heave a job here, and, in fact, whatever you learn in dot com, that'll be valuable to your long-term career at HP.

What happened while I was out doing the dot com, HP started bringing in workers from India because they would work for a lot cheaper.
And also they brought them in to train them, to get some foreigners trained, so that they could then ship them back to the research and development labs back in India and China .

Blinder:
Off-shoring of employment has been with us for a very long time but has mostly been restricted to manufacturing.
The now wrinkle is off-shoring of services.
The number and range and variety of jobs that could in principle be done abroad, say over the internet, it's enormous.

CEO,Sterling-Winthrop (1989-1994) Lou Mattis
If you look at it in terms of pure business ,they're the right decisions.
You go to the lowest labor cost., in term of patriotism, they're not.

Blinder:
It will be painful and for a number of reasons. One of them: it is going to be large,maybe over the cost of the next generation, 30,40 million jobs.
It's important to note this is not either about only low skilled jobs or only high skilled jobs; they're all over!
If what you do is write computer code, routine computer code, you might as well be anywhere in the world.
You lose nothing in quality if you move the job from Indianan to India.


Paul Craig Roberts, a co-founder of Reaganomics, feels that big business has gone too far.
He said: All these ladders are being dismantled. Where are the jobs for university graduates?
They are now beginning to face the same dilemmas that blue collar workers faced when they lost their $20 an hour manufacturing jobs with their good benefits. and so we have
an economy that is starting to impoverish its workforce.

And what the corporations are doing: they tell Congress, "oh, there's a shortage of engineers.There is a shortage of scientists. We can't find any." This is all an total lie.

Narrator:
Many corporations will go to any lengths, including these legal but deceptive practices, to hire cheaper foreign labor.

Present head of GE said that when he looks at the future of his company, he sees China and China and China.
So these guys will go where the cheapest labours.
There is no allegiance to the United States of America.

Since 2002, GE has reduced its American workforce by tens of thousands of people.
In 2008, the global conglomerate received a $140 billion bailout from American taxpayers.
GE also spends more money lobbying Congress than any other corporation in the world.
In 2011, President Obama appointed GE's CEO, Jeffrey Immelt, to run his Presidential Council on jobs and Competitiveness.更多精彩文章及讨论，请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net