How serious of a problem is "corporatism" ?

[kentuck]

Is it as bad as Edwards says it is? Do they have a stranglehold on our system of government? Are they escaping paying their fair share of taxes? Do they really have tax shelters off-shore? Do they really withhold healthcare from people that need it? Do they see their bottom lines as more important than the welfare of the people that work for them? Or is it all just an exaggeration?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

1. It's A Feature Of American Life

But the government can temper its excesses...Unfettered capitalism is its own worst enemy...

[kentuck]

5. How can the government "temper its excesses"?

Raise taxes? More regulation? How?

[billbuckhead]

2. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes,yes, yes, yes,..............

[Fredda Weinberg]

3. The weather is serious too, but we don't declare war on it.

Corporations have only been around for blip in history ... we're not done with the social revolution they've wrought. I want a practical approach w/demonstrable results. Not too much to ask after the 90's ...

[Kucinich4America]

11. Only because we don't know how yet.

Your analogy is actually ridiculous, but lets use it anyway. If you had the technology to stop Hurricane Katrina, or the tsunami in South Asia, wouldn't you have used it? Or if you could manufacture a huge rain storm to dump on Southern California in the middle of the wildfires, or on Georgia where there has been a serious long term drought.

Some day we might well declare "war" on the weather, for the greater good of the people. We can do the same to corporatism right now.

[Fredda Weinberg]

18. My analogy holds. We can't control the weather ... even w/rain dances

I love your hypotheticals, but don't attack when you can't defend. Have a great day.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

4. It's the #1 problem we have....

It affects our health, our jobs, whether we live or die, whether or children get a proper education or not, whether the food we eat is good or chemicalized, hormonized shit, whether or not our kids have insurance or not, whether we live in safety or not, what we're allowed to know or not know, it affects war vs. peace, it affects, E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G IN THE U.S.!

[kentuck]

7. Even the air we breathe?

Sounds so Marxist. :-)

[Sarah Ibarruri]

14. SPECIALLY the air we breathe! And hey, if it's Marxist to hate corporations....

Then my middle name is Marx! lol

[yourout]

6. Just the runaway CEO pay structure alone is a sign of a severly screwed up world.

Growth, Growth, Growth,....at all costs Growth.

What is wrong with a sustainable rate of growth and consistant small to moderate profit?

[The Traveler]

8. Malignant --- just one example

Back in the Carter days, I was a grad student in physics. We knew back then we were heading for trouble enivornmentally speaking. Corporate America has spent countless millions to suppress and deny to the public the growing body of evidence that human activity was triggering climate change.

Were the executives spending those budgets ignorant of the truth? Doubtful. They were just hoping that these costs of unfettered capitalism would be paid by future generations, rather than be deducted from their bottom line profits. Well, the future is now ...

Anyway, if that isn't malign, I don't know what is.

[depakid]

9. Compare the way ordinary Americans live to people in other Western nations

and you'll have your answer....

[Viva_La_Revolution]

10. The biggest...

Lousy health care, no bid contracts to kill Iraqis, the push to privatize schools and SS... Name one major problem our country faces right now, boil it down the core and you find corporate pigs slopping at the trough (or at least, trying to).

[jwirr]

17. And add NAFTA, CAFTA , tax payer asked to subsidize outsourcing,

the corporate use of third world people for experimenting (The Constant Gardener) and all the other pro corporations laws that make them equal to person-hood.

[Ineedchange]

12. I thought it was a joke until I read the following stories.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20050502/klein

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2004/09/0080197 Now you will know why Gen Garner was fired in Iraq and Paul Bremer was sent to Iraq!!!

About 3 moths ago there was a job announcement for Democracy Speacialist via the Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization on http://www.usajobs.gov/!!! I thought it was a joke until I read the above links.

Now goggle "privatization of all services in New Orleans"!!!

[Armstead]

13. Very

It's not an exaggeration.

Corporatism has had a negative impact on almost every facet of life. The notion that everything else must be subservient to profit and corporate efficiency has been pushing out almost every otehr value in many aspects of life.

Business is not automatically bad. Even Big Business has its place.

But the balance has been shifted towards corporatism and massive corporate states way way way too far.

[L0oniX]

15. No doubt some here make 6 figure incomes from corporations so...

I wouldn't expect everyone here to be anti-corporation. I am sure the ones they work for are the good ones... yea right.

[Ineedchange]

20. There are some great corporations out there just the number of goods is shrinking.

I've been trying to define when this moment really started. I really want to beleive it's the result of some untold perfect storm in corporations, society and our government.

[TygrBright]

16. DEEPLY serious. Consider the impact...

...of just the energy, financial services, and for-profit health care sectors on shaping our public and foreign policy.

We STILL, in the face of overwhelming evidence, have done virtually nothing to address the escalating degradation of our continent's (and our planet's) ability to support human life, largely because of the energy industry.

We have a massive meltdown of the credit structure that supports the financial health of America's families, a slow-motion debt crisis, and other crises looming in the offing, mainly because of the financial services sector's influence on deregulation.

We have lost ground not only in comparison with other nations, but against our own recent past, on key indicators like longevity, emergency room use, hospital safety, infant mortality, the incidence of chronic, endemic, and epidemic diseases-- and the blame is squarely on the health care corporate sector, which includes the health 'insurance' industry.

Our federal spending on corporate welfare and military procurement is eating our budget alive and sending us into a spiraling deficit, especially when you include the massive corporate welfare package that is the so-called 'prescription drug relief' program for seniors. Corporate influence has brought about the "outsourcing" of key national security and infrastructure functions, and resulted in huge expenditures for shoddy, poor quality outcomes that cost lives and impact American families. Ask anyone in New Orleans or Minnesota's Twin Cities.

Yes. Corporatism is one of the two most serious threats to the future of our republic.

adamantly,
Bright

[stillcool]

19. "The Rich and the Super-Rich"...

by Ferdinand Lundberg is available for free download due to it's copyright expiration at the Soil and Health Library. It has been..by far...the best written, sourced, book.. that has managed to explain to me how we got here..not an easy task. I refer to it time and time again...it's almost like a road map.

http://www.soilandhealth.org/03sov/0303critic/0303socialcriticism.html

[Viva_La_Revolution]

22. thank you for that!

amazing titles! :)

[stillcool]

24. yeah...I was pretty excited...

when I stumbled upon it....like I struck gold.

[stray cat]

21. It made me go democratic

[GreenPartyVoter]

23. Yes, it's bad. We're in a new golden age of robber barons.

[no name no slogan]

25. HUGE. Address corporatism and you solve a lot of others

The domination of the economy and the political process by large, faceless corporations is the biggest problem in the country. 90% of our other problems stem from the fact that corporations have nearly unlimited power yet absolutely no responsibility for their actions.

Rein in corporations and win back the country.