Top Documentary Films – Watch Free Documentaries

Top Documentary Films – Watch Free Documentaries.

Ethos, a powerful new documentary hosted by Woody Harrelson, is an investigation into the flaws in our systems, and the mechanisms that work against democracy, our environment and the the common good.

With a stunning depth of research and breadth of analysis, this film delves deep into the inter-connected worlds of Politics, Multi-National Corporations and the Media.

Most of us have wondered at some point how we have arrived at a situation where democracy is touted as having created an equal society when all we see is injustice and corruption.

Politicians openly deceive the public with the support of major corporations and the mainstream media. Wars are waged, the environment is destroyed and inequality is on the rise.

But what is the source of these institutional mechanisms which – when we scratch the surface – are so clearly anti-democratic, so contradictory to the values we hold in common and yet so firmly embedded that they seem beyond discussion?

Ethos opens a Pandora’s box that has it’s roots in the cross-roads where capitalism-meets-democracy, implicates every power-elite puts profit before people and finally offers a solution whereby you – the viewer – can regain control using the one thing they do care about – your cash.

Watch the full documentary now

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Rising gas prices crimp Americans’ spending – Yahoo! News – The Fed doesnt have an answer

Rising gas prices crimp Americans' spending – Yahoo! News.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Higher gas prices are crimping consumer spending and slowing the already-weak U.S. economy. And they could get worse in the coming months.

The Federal Reserve this week took steps to boost economic growth. But those stimulus measures are also pushing oil prices up. If gas prices follow, consumers will have less money to spend elsewhere.

The impact of the Fed’s actions “is likely to weigh on the value of the U.S. dollar and lift commodity prices,” said Joseph Carson, U.S. economist at AllianceBernstein. “We would not be surprised if (it) fueled more inflation in coming months, squeezing the real income of U.S. workers.”

Americans are already feeling pinched by high unemployment, slow wage growth and higher gas prices.

Consumers increased their spending at retail businesses by 0.9 percent in August, the Commerce Department reported Friday. But that was largely because they paid more for gas. Excluding the impact of gas prices and a sizeable increase in auto sales, retail sales rose just 0.1 percent.

Perhaps more telling is where Americans spent less. Consumers cut back on clothing, electronics and at general merchandise outlets — discretionary purchases that typically signal confidence in the economy.

Gas prices have risen more than 50 cents per gallon in the past two months. The national average was $3.87 a gallon on Friday. Most of the increase took place in August, which drove the biggest one-month increase in overall consumer prices in three years, the Labor Department said Friday in a separate report.

“Consumers were not willing to spend much at the mall since they are feeling the pump price pinch,” said Chris Christopher, an economist at IHS Global Insight.

Weaker retail sales will likely weigh on growth in the July-September quarter. Economists at Bank of America Merrill Lynch slashed their third-quarter growth forecast to an annual rate of only 1.1 percent, down from 1.5 percent. That’s not nearly fast enough to spur more hiring, which has languished since February.

The Fed is hoping to kick-start growth with a series of bold steps announced Thursday that could make borrowing cheaper for years.

It plans to spend $40 billion a month to buy mortgage bonds to make home buying more affordable. It also pledged to keep short-term interest rates near zero through at least mid-2015.

And Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said the Fed will continue its efforts — and intensify them if necessary — until the job market improves “substantially.”

The announcement ignited a two-day stock market rally that sent the Dow Jones industrial average to its highest level since December 2007, the first month of the Great Recession.

But the Fed’s actions also helped move oil prices briefly above $100 a barrel Friday for the first time since May. They fell back slightly, but were still up 74 cents to $99.04 a barrel in mid-afternoon trading.

Carson noted that the Fed’s previous rounds of bond-buying pushed up commodity prices and fueled greater inflation. That weakened the ability of U.S. consumers to spend and likely slowed growth, he said.

He expects the same thing to happen again.

The Fed’s moves can push up oil prices in several ways. The Fed creates new money to pay for its mortgage bond purchases. That increases the amount of dollars in circulation and can lower their value. Oil is priced in dollars, so the price tends to rise when the dollar falls. That’s because it costs more for overseas investors to purchase dollars to buy oil.

Lower interest rates also push investors out of safer assets, such as bonds, and into riskier investments, such as oil, in hopes of a greater return. And if the Fed’s moves accelerate growth, that would increase demand for oil and gas and also raise their prices.

Higher gas prices are eating up a bigger share of Americans’ incomes than in previous years. Spending at the pump accounts for 8.2 percent of the typical family’s household income, according to Fred Rozell of the Oil Price Information Service. That’s just below last year’s 8.3 percent.

Those represent the biggest slice of household income spent on gas since 1981. The typical household spends about $342 per month on gasoline. Before gasoline prices began rising in 2004, households spent less than $200 per month, Rozell said, under 5 percent of median income.

Average gas prices are higher this year than last year. But Americans are using less by driving more fuel-efficient cars and driving less.

Meanwhile, average wages, adjusted for inflation, have been flat for the past year, the Labor Department said Friday. That adds to the squeeze on consumers.

One silver lining is that weakness should eventually push prices back down, economists note. That’s because people cut back on oil and gas consumption when prices rise.

“Unless the economic data rapidly improve, the gains in oil … prices are unlikely to be sustained,” Julian Jessop, an analyst Capital Economics, said.

__

AP Energy Writer Jonathan Fahey contributed to this report from New York.

They Only Help The Rich But What About Us The 99 Percent; we’re the invisible people.

The Fed steps in, and stocks soar: Dow climbs 206 – Yahoo! News.

NEW YORK (AP) — The stock market staged a huge rally Thursday after investors got the aggressive economic help they wanted from the Federal Reserve.

The Dow Jones industrial average spiked more than 200 points and cleared 13,500 for the first time since the beginning of the Great Recession. The average is within 625 points of its all-time high.

The Fed said it would buy $40 billion of mortgage securities a month until the economy improves. It left open the possibilities of buying other assets and of buying long after the recovery picks up.

The central bank also extended its pledge of super-low short-term interest rates into 2015, and extended a program to drive down long-term rates.

It was the package known as QE3 — a third round of quantitative easing, in market-speak. And it was just what investors were hoping for.

“They’re saying that the punch bowl, the fuel for the economy, isn’t going away — it’s going to be here as long as you need it,” said Tony Fratto, a former aide to President George W. Bush and managing partner at Hamilton Place Strategies, a policy consulting firm in Washington.

The Dow closed up 206.51 points, the seventh-biggest gain this year, at 13,539.86, its highest close since the last days of December 2007, the first month of the recession.

The broader Standard & Poor’s 500 index was up 23.43 points at 1,459.99, also its highest since December 2007. The Nasdaq composite index, which has been trading at its highest levels since 2000, was up 41.52 at 3,155.83.

David Abuaf, chief investment officer at Hefty Wealth Partners, said he expects investors to keep shifting from safer assets like government bonds to stocks. That could push stock prices higher and start a cycle of increased wealth and spending.

“People will feel more confident, consumers will buy more goods, and GDP growth will increase,” he said, referring to the gross domestic product, or economic output.

The stock market had already enjoyed a summer rally, in part because investors were betting on more Fed action. The Dow has climbed more than 1,100 points since the start of June.

Still, stocks spiked Thursday in industries across the economy. Materials companies, which tend to do well when the economy picks up, enjoyed the biggest gain — 2.6 percent as a group. Bank stocks also surged.

This is the third round of bond-buying by the Fed since the financial crisis struck in the fall of 2008. The goal is to lower long-term interest rates, get people to borrow and spend more and push investors into stocks.

If history is any guide, stocks could rally a bit more. In the three months following March 2009, when the Fed said it would expand its first round of buying, the S&P 500 rose 18 percent. In the three months after the central bank hinted at a second round of buying in August 2010, the S&P rose 14 percent.

Some economists and investors have warned that the bond-buying will have a limited impact because interest rates are already near record lows.

Critics of the stock rally say investors should focus on why the Fed is acting in the first place: The U.S. economy is weak. Economic growth in China is also slowing, and much of Europe is in recession and struggling with high debt.

Earlier this month, Mario Draghi, the head of the European Central Bank, said the central bank would buy the debt of countries that use the euro and are desperate to keep their borrowing costs down.

“I’m not buying anything,” Gary Flam of Bel Air Investment Advisors said as Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke spoke at a press conference.

Flam added, referring to Draghi and Bernanke: “These two guys are propping up market in the hope it will trickle down to the economy, but after several years of this we haven’t seen a sustainable impact. The underlying problems of debt and deficits remain.”

The Fed also lowered its outlook for economic growth this year to no stronger than 2 percent. That’s down from its forecast of 2.4 percent in June.

In Treasury trading, the yield on the benchmark 10-year note fell slightly to 1.73 percent from 1.79 percent late Wednesday. It had spiked to 1.84 percent as investors sold bonds after the Fed announcement.

The dollar fell slightly against major currencies. It tumbled almost a penny against the euro, which rose to a hair under $1.30.

The price of gold climbed to its highest level since February — $1,772 an ounce, a gain of $38, or 2 percent. When the Fed buys bonds, gold often rises, both because investors fear inflation and because a weaker dollar makes gold more expensive.

The trading day didn’t begin well. European markets were falling and U.S. futures slid, suggesting stocks might fall when U.S. markets opened.

In addition to worries about what the Fed might do, investors were rattled by turmoil in the Middle East. Protesters stormed the U.S. Embassy compound in Yemen’s capital earlier in the day, and there was violence around the U.S. mission in Cairo. The U.S. ambassador to Libya was killed Tuesday.

Stocks rose after the open but barely. Then the Fed released a statement about its moves shortly after 12:30 p.m., and prices began to climb steadily. Some Fed watchers homed in on a pledge to keep stimulating the economy for a “considerable” time “after” it appears to have strengthened. That is stronger language than the central bank had used before.

Then Bernanke started speaking at the press conference at around 2:15, and stocks shot up. A few minutes into the conference, the Dow was up nearly 240 points.

“We are looking for ongoing, sustained improvement in the labor market,” Bernanke told reporters. “There’s not a specific number in mind. But what we’ve seen in the last six months isn’t it.”

In other news Thursday, the Labor Department reported that the number of people seeking unemployment benefits jumped last week to the highest level in two months, though the figures were skewed in part by Hurricane Isaac.

The figures come after a disappointing jobs report last week. Employers added only 96,000 jobs in August, far below the average 226,000 a month added in the January-March quarter.

The government also said that wholesale prices rose 1.7 percent in August, the most in three years. They were driven up by higher costs for gas and food. Removing the impact of energy and food, however, the increase in prices has been mild.

Among stocks making moves, Pall Corp. rose $4.63, or 8 percent, to $62.80. The company, which makes filtration equipment, posted net income that beat Wall Street predictions.

Apple climbed $13.19, or 2 percent, to $682.98. On Wednesday, the company unveiled an iPhone with a bigger screen and faster download speeds.

On Wednesday, the Dow rose to a four-year high after Germany’s highest court rejected calls to block the creation of Europe’s rescue fund for indebted governments.

The Fed action combined with the Middle East turmoil pushed crude prices up to above $98 a barrel of the first time in more than four months. Oil rose $1.30 to close at $98.31 on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

There were nearly four stocks rising for every one falling. Volume was high, 4.5 billion shares.

___

AP Business Writer Christina Rexrode contributed to this report.

Florida primary saw early voting surge across state – Tampa Bay Times

Florida primary saw early voting surge across state – Tampa Bay Times.

TALLAHASSEE — More people took advantage of early voting in last month’s Florida primary than in any primary before it, despite Democratic fears that fewer days of early voting would suppress turnout.

According to state elections officials, more than 367,000 people went to early voting centers, or about one of six voters who showed up. That compares to 363,000 in the 2010 primary and 240,000 in 2008 (Florida has had early voting since 2002).

Even more voters cast absentee ballots through the mail.

Kate Graves of Brandon voted at the Bloomingdale branch library six days before the primary, one of more than 20,000 Hillsborough residents who voted early.

“It’s the convenience factor,” the 79-year-old retiree says. “At my age, I don’t like standing in line. As soon as they opened up the voting, I took advantage.”

Graves has something else in common with other early voters: like the majority of them, she’s a Democrat.

In the five counties with the most early voters in the primary, Democrats made up 51 percent of voters and Republicans 39 percent, with the rest not affiliated with a party.

Many factors influence turnout from the weather to voter interest in primary races to the date of the election. The primary on Aug. 14 was two weeks earlier than usual, and the statewide turnout was 20.5 percent.

The Republican-controlled Florida Legislature’s decision to cut early voting days from 14 to eight in 2011 remains highly controversial. Democrats accuse Republicans of seeking to manipulate, for partisan advantage, a type of voting favored by Democrats, especially African-Americans, while Republicans say the new scheme adds flexibility.

Many more people are expected to vote early in the presidential election in November, and elections officials are emphasizing the convenience of voting early due to the unusually lengthy ballot, with 11 proposed state constitutional amendments.

Late Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Justice gave final approval to the eight-day early voting schedule in five counties that are under U.S. civil rights oversight. All five will offer 12 hours of early voting from Oct. 27 through Nov. 3, as a panel of federal judges had proposed.

In the primary, those five counties — Hillsborough, Monroe, Collier, Hardee and Hendry — offered 12 days of early voting instead of eight because they were still bound by the old election laws.

Early voting turnout in those counties in the primary was greater, said University of Florida political scientist Daniel Smith.

Smith compared early voting in the five “covered” counties with the rest of the state and found that early voting was higher in counties with more early voting days. He said that shows that longer early voting periods boost voter turnout.

Smith and a fellow researcher, Michael Herron of Dartmouth College, found that 18.96 percent of voters voted early in five counties with more early voting days, compared with 15.39 percent who voted early in the rest of the state.

The largest of those five counties, by far, is Hillsborough.

The story of early voting is vastly different on the other side of Tampa Bay.

The only urban county where early voting remains very unpopular is Pinellas, where Supervisor of Elections Deborah Clark emphasizes the ease of absentee voting by mail instead.

Voters are heeding Clark’s message: Fewer people voted early in Pinellas last month than in comparatively tiny Monroe County in the Florida Keys.

A mere 1,612 Pinellas voters cast ballots at one of three early voting sites, while 102,341 cast absentee or mail ballots. A total of 140,000 people voted county-wide, a 23 percent turnout.

The mail-in voters included William Ott, 67, of Clearwater, a Largo High School graduate who has been voting in Pinellas since 1966 and who remembers a bad experience with long lines in a past election. That and health issues changed his method of voting.

“I finally gave up and said, ‘Okay, I’m going to vote absentee,” Ott said. “I didn’t want to do it. I enjoyed the experience of going down to the polls on Election Day.”

Ott likes a feature on the Pinellas elections website that allows him to track his ballot to be sure it’s counted. “Now that’s kind of cool,” he said.

Steve Bousquet can be reached at bousquet@sptimes.com or (850) 224-7263.

EARLY VOTING TOTALS

These five counties had the most early voters in the Aug. 14 primary election:

Miami-Dade 38,670

Hillsborough 20,213

Orange 17,818

Duval 17,697

Broward 16,335

State total 367,205

Source: Department of State

DEMOCRATS FAVOR EARLY VOTING

A breakdown by party in the five counties that had the most early voters:

County Democrat Republican Other

Miami-Dade 20,477 12,824 5,369

Hillsborough 8,463 10,503 1,247

Orange 8,702 7,290 1,826

Duval 8,260 8,476 961

Broward 10,735 4,288 1,303

Sources: County supervisors of elections

House GOP Budget Would Cost States Ten Times More Than Expanding Medicaid | ThinkProgress

House GOP Budget Would Cost States Ten Times More Than Expanding Medicaid | ThinkProgress.

ss on Sep 13, 2012 at 5:00 pm

One aspect of the Affordable Care Act still in contention is the law’s expansion of Medicaid — the health care program for the disabled, seniors, and low-income Americans that’s jointly funded by the federal government and the states. The Supreme Court’s ruling on health care reform back in June determined that states could chose to opt out of the expansion without losing the federal Medicaid dollars they already recieve. Several governors — all of them Republicans — have already taken the opportunity to declare their state will not participate in the program’s expansion.

These refusals are often justified on budgetary grounds: Medicaid’s burden “increasingly shifts to Florida taxpayers in future years” and was “growing three and a half times as fast as Florida’s general revenue” as Governor Rick Scott put it. Georgia Governor Nathan Deal said of the expansion, “I think that is something our state cannot afford.” And Rick Perry, the ever blunt governor of Texas, declared, “I will not be party to… bankrupting my state.”

Ironically, however, a recent analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities determined that the budget Paul Ryan engineered in the House — which was passed by the governors’ own party, and endorsed by Rick Perry and the other leaders of the Republican Governors Association — would cost states’ budgets well over ten times as much as the ACA’s Medicaid expansion.

The CBPP determined that between now and 2022 the Medicaid expansion would cost states $73 billion. Over that same time period, the House GOP budget would cut $810 billion from the federal government’s contribution to Medicaid, on top of its repeal of the ACA’s Medicaid expansion. The budget would also cut another $281 billion from federal support for schools and other state and local services. A grand total of $1.091 trillion in losses to state budgets.

In fairness to the governors, the Urban Institute ran the numbers and found that the cost of expanding Medicaid would not fall evenly on the states. (It should be noted their estimates only run through 2019.) And the majority of the states either refusing, or leaning towards refusing the expansion, have populations with unusually high portions of people that are currently uninsured but would be eligible to join Medicaid.

But even under the Urban Institute’s worst-case predictions, several of the refusing or leaning-towards-refusal states still see net savings from the new federal dollars that come with the expansion. And for those that still see net costs, such as Texas and Florida, the highest predicted budgetary hit was in the vicinity $2.5 billion. Almost certainly, that comes no where close to matching the damage that would be done if the House GOP’s budget became law.

Meanwhile, the number of uninsured Americans fell by 1.3 million in 2011 — the first time it’s gone down in four years. In no small part, the decrease was due to a boost in Medicaid and CHIP funding included in the 2009 stimulus. If all the states carry through with the far greater boost the ACA’s expansion would bring to Medicaid, as many as 17 million currently uninsured Americans could finally gain coverage.
be found here.

Right-To-Work Laws: A GOP Assault on Unions – Salem-News.Com

Labor leaders say that allowing workers to opt out of paying any money to the union that represents them weakens unions’ finances, bargaining clout, and political power.

Graphic by McClatchy Newspapers

(SAN FRANCISCO) – In February this year, Indiana became the 23rd state to enact a right-to-work law (RTW), the only RTW law passed in the last decade. Republicans generally favor RTW laws while unions and Democrats do not. RTW laws are geographical too. RTW states are clustered in the Southeast, covering every state from Virginia to Florida and west to Texas, and then north through the Great Plains to the Dakotas and into the Rockies. The West Coast and Midwest-to-Northeast Rust Belt, both traditional union strongholds, have remained non-RTW states. RTW states generally vote Republican while non-RTW states generally vote Democrat.

RTW is also a potent political symbol, causing serious adverse financial consequences for unions. The Democratic Party receives significant support from organized labor, who supply a great deal of the money, grass roots political organization, and voting base in support of the party. Thus, RTW is not only an assault on unions, but also on the Democratic Party, who rely on labor for support.

Section 14(b) of theTaft-Hartley amendments to the Labor Management Relations Act, 29 U.S.C §141, permits a state to pass laws that prohibit unions from requiring a worker to pay dues, even when the worker is covered by a union-negotiated collective bargaining agreement. Thus, workers in RTW states have less incentive to join a union and to pay union dues and, as a result, unions have less clout vis-à-vis corporations. In other words, RTW laws prohibit union contracts at private sector workplaces from requiring employees to pay any dues or other fees to the union. In states without such laws, workers at unionized workplaces generally have to pay such dues or fees.

RTW laws tend to diminish union power and influence. Labor leaders say that allowing workers to opt out of paying any money to the union that represents them weakens unions’ finances, bargaining clout, and political power.

According to Steven Greenhouse of the New York Times (www.nytimes.com/2012/01/03/business/gathering-storm-over-right-to-work-in-indiana.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=business), Henry Farber, a labor economist at Princeton, said RTW laws, by allowing “free riders,” shrink union treasuries. (RTW advocates say such employees have been forced into unions, but organized labor calls them "free riders.") One study found that the portion of free riders in RTW states ranged from 9 percent in Georgia to 39 percent in South Dakota.

Greenhouse cites another study by David T. Ellwood, the dean of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, and Glenn A. Fine, a former Justice Department official, who found that in the five years after states enacted RTW laws, the number of unionization drives dropped by 28 percent, and in the following five years by an added 12 percent. Organizing wins fell by 46 percent in the first five years and 30 percent the next five. Over all, they found, RTW laws, beyond other factors, caused union membership to drop 5 percent to 10 percent.

Proponents of RTW laws claim that states with such laws grow faster and their citizens are better off. But with their faster growing populations, RTW states had unemployment rates averaging 8 percent in April of 2011, just below the 8.2 percent average in non-RTW states.

In The Compensation Penalty of "Right-To-Work" Laws by the Economic Policy Institute (www.epi.org/page/-/old/briefingpapers/BriefingPaper299.pdf?nocdn=1), economists Elise Gould and Heidi Shierholz examined the differences in compensation between RTW and non-RTW states. (The Economic Policy Institute is a labor-backed research center.) Controlling for the demographic and job characteristics of workers as well as state-level economic conditions and cost-of-living differences across states, they found that in 2009 wages were 3.2 percent lower in RTW states versus non-RTW – about $1,500 less annually for a full-time, year-round worker; the rate of employer-sponsored health insurance was 2.6 percentage points lower in RTW states compared with non-RTW states; the rate of employer-sponsored pensions was 4.8 percentage points lower in RTW states. And, in 2008, the rate of workplace deaths was 57 precent higher in RTW states than non-RTW states, while the 2009, poverty rate in RTW states averaged 15 percent, considerably above the 12.8 percent average for non-RTW states.

Gould and Shierholz concluded, "RTW legislation misleadingly sounds like a positive change in this weak economy, in reality the opportunity it gives workers is only that to work for lower wages and fewer benefits. For legislators dedicated to making policy on the basis of economic fact rather than ideological passion, our findings indicate that, contrary to the rhetoric of RTW proponents, the data show that workers in “right-to-work” states have lower compensation – both union and nonunion workers alike."

And according to Gordon Lafer (www.epi.org/publication/working-hard-indiana-bad-tortured-uphill), an economist at the University of Oregon’s Labor Education and Research Center, there is no evidence that RTW laws have any positive impact on employment or bringing back manufacturing jobs. Commenting on Oklahoma’s passage of a RTW law in 2001, Lafer, noted that rather than increasing job opportunities, the state saw companies relocate out of Oklahoma. In high-tech industries and those service industries "dependent on consumer spending in the local economy" the laws appear to have actually damaged growth. At the end of the decade, 50,000 fewer Oklahoma residents had jobs in manufacturing. Perhaps most damning, Lafer could find no evidence that the legislation had a positive impact on employment rates.

In May 8, 2011, Senator Jim DeMint (R. SC) introduced the National Right-to-Work Act S-504), a bill to preserve and protect the free choice of individual employees to form, join, or assist labor organizations, or to refrain from such activities. S-504 has no chance of passage in the Senate and even if it did, President Obama would likely veto it. However, if the Republicans retake the White House and Senate, and retain the House, you can bet a National RTW Act will be high on the Republican to do list.

Why do we need unions anyway? Because they are essential for America. Unions are the only large-scale movement left in America that persistently acts as a countervailing balance against corporate power. They act in the economic interests of the middle class. But the decline of unions over the past few decades has left corporations and the rich with essentially no powerful opposition. You may take issue with a particular union’s position on an issue, but remember they are the only real organized check on the power of the business community in this country. RTW laws are anti-union, pro-business

___________________________________

Salem-News.com writer Ralph E. Stone was born in Massachusetts. He is a graduate of both Middlebury College and Suffolk Law School. We are very fortunate to have this writer’s talents in this troubling world; Ralph has an eye for detail that others miss. As is the case with many Salem-News.com writers, Ralph is an American Veteran who served in war. Ralph served his nation after college as a U.S. Army officer during the Vietnam war. After Vietnam, he went on to have a career with the Federal Trade Commission as an Attorney specializing in Consumer and Antitrust Law. Over the years, Ralph has traveled extensively with his wife Judi, taking in data from all over the world, which today adds to his collective knowledge about extremely important subjects like the economy and taxation. You can send Ralph an email at this address stonere@earthlink.net

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Right-To-Work Laws: A GOP Assault on Unions – Salem-News.Com

Jesse Ventura: Mitt Romney is Gordon Gecko | The Raw Story

Former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura on Wednesday blasted Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and the U.S. Supreme Court

“Corporations have no soul, all they have is a bottom line,” he said on Talking Liberally. “People need to understand that. When the Supreme Court ruled that corporations have the same equal rights as individuals and when they ruled that money is free speech, that was the lowest day in our country’s history in my opinion.”

Ventura said if the United States elected Romney, they would be electing Gordon Gecko, the greed-driven corporate raider from the film Wall Street.

“What Bain or whatever it was he worked for, that’s exactly what their job was. They were hostile corporate take overs. They would take over companies, they would shred them, and make huge profits and send everybody to the unemployment line.”

Watch video, courtesy of Current TV, below:

http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/Pc0A7c0TSiQ?rel=0

Eric W. Dolan

Eric W. Dolan has served as an editor for Raw Story since August 2010, and is based out of San Diego, California. He grew up in the suburbs of Chicago and received a Bachelor of Science from Bradley University. Eric is also the publisher and editor of PsyPost. You can follow him on Twitter @ewdolan.

 

 

Jesse Ventura: Mitt Romney is Gordon Gecko | The Raw Story.

Senate Republicans Ask JP Morgan CEO For Marching Orders: ‘What Do You Think We Need To Do?’ | ThinkProgress

JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon appeared before the Senate Banking Committee today to discuss the bungled trade that has cost his bank billions and reignited interest in the Volcker Rule, which is meant to rein in risky bank trading. During the course of the questioning, Dimon denied that he had called new bank capital requirements “anti-American,” which he had, and explained that he would be happy to get an apartment in Washington, D.C., so that Congress could consult him on financial regulations.

For the most part, the questions Dimon faced were not of the tough variety. In fact, Republicans on the committee were more interested in asking Dimon how Congress could make regulation more accommodating to the banks. Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID) even asked “what should the function of our regulators be?” Here are several other examples of Republican senators asking Dimon how he’d like his bank to be regulated:

SEN. BOB CORKER (R-TN): We’re here quizzing you. If you were sitting on this side of the dais, what would you do to make our system safer than it is and still meet the needs of a global economy like we have?

SEN. MIKE CRAPO (R-ID): Many people say our primary focus from our perspective in terms of policy should be to make sure the banks are properly capitalized. Should that be our primary focus and what other areas of oversight would be the most effective for us in terms of our regulatory structure?

SEN. JIM DEMINT (R-SC): I would like to come away from the hearing today with some ideas on what you think we need to do, what we maybe need to take apart that we’ve already done, to allow the industry to operate better.

SEN. ROGER WICKER (R-MS): And you said something else that really sort caught me by surprise, and that was this testimony that nobody got all the parties in a room with people in your industry — Democrats, Republicans, and folks affected — and talked about what was needed and what really needed to be fixed. Did I hear you correctly there? Did you volunteer to be part of that conversation?

Watch it:

Just a few senators, including Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), took the opportunity to press Dimon on what went wrong at JP Morgan. If nothing else, the bank’s trading disaster makes the case for strengthening the Volcker Rule so that banks can’t gamble with taxpayer-backed money.

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• Chase Bank
• Financial Regulation

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Senate Republicans Ask JP Morgan CEO For Marching Orders: ‘What Do You Think We Need To Do?’ | ThinkProgress.

Organized Labor Really Does Make A Diffierece

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyfPJYWyyJg&feature=player_detailpage The electronic revolution has changed our world for the worst; making all things globally connected. The anti- labor free trade laws and deregulate of corporations has been an organized effort to attack labor as well as consumers. This has made it easy for huge corporations to move their plants overseas, or move them to Right-To-Work states where labor is cheap; as well as allowing the big banks to steal our homes, our invests, our pensions, our healthcare insurance, and our life savings leaving 99 percent of us financially ruined. They’re 24 states who have Right-To-Work laws their mostly in the south of the USA in small states. That number is growing through corporate political power. Many huge corporations bought their suppliers to do in-sourcing of parts and services to cut the cost of production; killing off small neighborhood businesses. http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1992-07-26/news/9207240852_1_free-trade-american-jobs-free-trade-agreement
The big multi-national corporations contract its labor in non-union states for cheap wages; that’s what Right-To-Work means no labor unions they’re outlawed. As well as third world countries where life has no value and there aren’t any human right laws and the people have no voice. The people in these third world countries are worked like slaves and are they’re poorly compensated for their labor. Many transnational corporations have outsourced their consumer service jobs: like our cell phone providers, our medical records, our computers technicians, our credit history, and our credit card bill. When we’re discussing our account it’s usually with a foreigner in a foreign country where wages are extremely low, and sometimes it’s difficult to communicate with these people because they don’t speak English well. These global corporations don’t care how bad the service they provide is, or how useless the product they manufacture is; they only care about increasing profits.
These monopolies control their markets killing off the competition by getting corporate welfare from their friends in government. They destroy our environment as did British Petroleum, and The Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf-of-Mexico in April of 2010. They spilled 100s of millions of barrels of petroleum into the Gulf killing wild life, destroying the health of 10s of thousands of people, closing down 100s of local businesses, and contaminating the land for 87 consecutive days. It’s still contaminated two years later with blooms of petroleum floats around in the ocean. It’s going to take hundreds of years for the Gulf to clear up from these toxic waters filled with oil. There were 225,000 claims file against BP, and The Deepwater Horizon and they settled for 7.8 billion in this law suit, or about 27,000 per claim this was an abuse of political power. http://globalwarming.house.gov/spillcam
With the new anti-labor Free Trade Agreements in place local economies have become enmeshed into the global economy this is the one world order of business creating displaced workers in foreign lands many come to the USA pushing wages down. Politicians use illegal immigrants to create racial hysteria to divide and conquer the labor market such as Bill O’Reilly and Shane Hannity on Fox News promoting racial tensions the “Brown People” are taking your job. These illegal undocumented workers are peasants, the very poor, who are looking for a better life in the USA; in their respective countries they have no human rights, and they have no legal rights as citizens. In the USA they get abused by politicians, the justice system, and by the people. This is a wedge issue that global corporations use to conquer and divide the workforce creating xenophobes; when in reality this is the answer to free trade. http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/29/look-to-europe-to-understand-why-this-u-s-recovery-is-jobless/

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Postal Service Stock Doctrine–“The Elimination Of Post Service”

“The GOPs attempt the privatize the post service to corporations like United Parcel Service or Federal Express meaning you will have to drive to get your mail; it will not be delivered to your home anymore. This is being done for campaign contributions to these corrupt politicians. It’s about what’s on their plate.”