What Does The Conservative Mind Look Like? A Hostess Twinkie

What Does The Conservative Mind  Look Like? A Hostess Twinkie

Hostess Brands, the maker of sweet snacks like Twinkies that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last week, will ask a bankruptcy judge today to approve a plan that will allow it to pay $1.75 million in bonuses to 19 of its executives. Hostess’ decision to file for bankruptcy came amid disputes with its union workers, who threatened a strike that Hostess said imperiled the company’s finances. The unions are now protesting Hostess’ request for the bonuses, though they are unlikely to prevail, CNN Money reports:

    Hostess Brands will ask a bankruptcy judge on Monday for approval to shut down the company and pay $1.75 million in executive bonuses.

    Unions representing workers at the maker of Twinkies, Wonder Bread and Drake’s snacks are arguing against the bonuses. [...]

    Under the plan, bonuses ranging from $7,400 to $130,500 will be paid to 19 executives. The company argues the bonuses are below market rates for such payments.

Even as it blamed unions for the bankruptcy and the 18,500 job losses that will ensue, Hostess already gave its executives pay raises earlier this year. The salary of the company’s chief executive tripled from $750,000 to roughly $2.5 million, and at least nine other executives received pay raises ranging from $90,000 to $400,000. Those raises came just months after Hostess originally filed for bankruptcy earlier this year.

Hostess is hardly the only company that has compensated its executives during bankruptcy or times of financial instability. Failed financial firm MF Global gave CEO Jon Corzine an $8 million pay package after it filed for bankruptcy, and Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit received a $6.7 million pay package when he resigned, despite Citi’s 88 percent profit loss during his final quarter. And Hostess isn’t alone in giving executives massive raises while asking for concessions from union workers either: construction giant Caterpillar rewarded its CEO with a 60 percent pay raise, paying him $17 million, even as it forced a pay and pension freeze on its union workforce.

Republicans get really pissed off when someone uses food stamps because their job does not pay enough to cover the basic costs of living, but they're happy to protect the elite privileges of the plutocratic executives who have systematically sent American jobs offshore, weakened unions and created a wage structure for workers that people can barely live on. That's not your grandfather's capitalism that is the capitalism of overlords over the serfs. They have to start calling people names like "Statists" and "Marxists" to distract attention from their fundamentally immoral and Anti-American shenanigans.

Is Anti-American proto-fascist Ann Coulter's book about "lies" a self-indictment?

Former Murdoch Aides to Be Charged With Bribery. Rupert Murdoch, an Australian wing-nut, is one of the patron saints of conservatism. Conservatives will do anything Rupert tells them to. So how is it that Conservatives can say they have Americans values when they worship a foreigner like a god.

For Capitalism and Democracy to Survive America Must Let Go of Economic Policy that Entrenches Poverty, Coddles the Wealthy

For Capitalism and Democracy to Survive America  Must Let Go of Economic Policy that Entrenches Poverty, Coddles the Wealthy

As much as they claim to loathe government, right-wing policy makers adore government assistance to the nation’s superrich.

The economic policies, including weakened regulation of the financial industry, pushed by a party that has become behold to the superrich ushered in the Great Recession and the gaping economic inequality that the nation seems to be slowly awakening. Yet likely not fast enough. The number in poverty is on track, The Associated Press reported in July, to reach “levels unseen in nearly half a century,” and wiping out gains to lessen poverty that were seen in the 1960s. These economic policies center on tax cuts for the wealthiest, dwindling social services, along with weak regulation of the financial industry.

“The upper 1 percent of Americans are now taking in nearly a quarter of the nation’s income every year,” Columbia Business School Professor Joseph Stiglitz wrote last year. “In terms of wealth rather than income, the top 1 percent control 40 percent.”

Stiglitz noted in the same article how woefully out touch the wealthiest are – they can take care of themselves just fine and are numb to the plight of a family of three that must somehow survive on an annual income of less than $38,000.

So what can be done to reverse the situation? It appears rather hopeless, since the superrich are also the most powerful and have been able to keep alive the economic policies that have benefited them at a great cost to everyone else. During this year’s ACS National Convention Peter Edelman, a Georgetown University law school professor and longtime advocate for the nation’s most vulnerable said the shrinking middle class must become far more vocal in calling for an end to disastrous economic policies.

In a recent op-ed for The New York Times, Edelman , also chair of the ACS Board, said we know “what we need to do – make the rich pay their fair share of running the country, raise the minimum wage, provide health care and a decent safety net, and the like”

But to do all those things, Edelman said the people in the middle must vote in way that represents “their own economic self-interest.” In other words the middle class needs cease identify with the super wealthy. As long as people in the middle identify more with people on the top than with those on the bottom, we are doomed,” he wrote.

In his Times’ op-ed Edelman sounds a positive note, citing the Progressive era and actions following the Great Depression, in the effort to push economic policies that advance the fortunes of many people.

But the work is daunting. The nation’s social safety net, as Edelman and others have long noted has taken a beating due to right-wing economic policy. In his new book So Rich, So Poor, he details the devastating impact to minorities and single parents that a tattered social safety net has wrought.  

Stiglitz noted a year ago in his Vanity Fair article that the powerful few often stand in the way of policy that would improve the lives many more people. But they do so at their peril. “The top 1 percent have the best houses, the best educations, the best doctors, and the best lifestyles, but there is one thing that money doesn’t seem to have bought: an understanding that their fate is bound up with how the other 99 percent live,” he wrote. “Throughout history, this is something that the top 1 percent eventually do learn. Too late.”

Why does how many of the middle-class identify with the interests of the 1%. Some studies have shown that many of the middle-class think that some day if they work hard they will be part of that 1%. Yet the data suggest the chances of moving up the economic ladder - something Americans took for granted from the FDR administration through at least the 1990s - is no longer the norm. Because politicians cater to the 1% that is how economic policy is slanted.

Poor guy who dared punk Chik-fil-A over its hateful policies was fired and is getting death threats.

Rupert Mudoch's Anti-American Fox Evening News Show Lies About Military Voting In Ohio. A new conspiracy myth that Obama is trying to keep the military from voting early. A complete lie. Ohio has tired to make it harder for seniors, students and minorities to vote and that is a violation of federal law.

I can describe Mitt Romney’s tax policy promises in two words: mathematically impossible.

Just Five Facts of Conservative Policy That Are Eating Away at The American Dream

Just Five Facts of Conservative Policy That Are Eating Away at The American Dream

"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses...I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" These words, from poet Emma Lazarus, were inscribed on the Statue of Liberty over 100 years ago. Today the golden door has a lock on it, paid for with record profits from the health care, education, and financial industries.(Painting: 1886 by Edward Moran)

1. We're near the bottom of the developed world in children's health and safety

According to a 2007 UNICEF report, the U.S. ranked last among 21 OECD nations in an assessment of child health and safety. The assessment measured infant mortality, immunization, and death from accidents and injuries.

A related 2009 OECD study generally agreed, placing the U.S. 24th out of 30 OECD countries for children's health and safety. It also showed the devastating effects of inequality in our country. Despite having the second-highest average income for children among the 30 OECD countries, the U.S. ranked 27th out of 30 for child poverty (percentage of children living in households that are below 50% of the median income).

2. We've betrayed the young people who were advised to stay in school

Over 40% of recent college graduates are living with their parents, dealing with government loans that average $27,200. The unemployment rate for young people is about 50%. More than 350,000 Americans with advanced degrees applied for food stamps in 2010.

As Washington lobbyists endeavor to kill a proposed bill to reduce the interest rates on student debt, federal loans remain readily available, and so colleges go right on increasing their tuition.

Meanwhile, corporations hold $2 trillion in cash while looking for investments and employees in foreign countries, and American students are forced to accept menial positions. Yet delusions persist about our new generation of would-be workers. Conservatives are all bubbly about today's young entrepreneurs creating their own jobs -- jobs that "don't yet exist."

3. The main source of middle-class wealth has been largely wiped out

American homeowners owe almost as much as the students, with $700 billion of debt over and above the value of their homes.

This removes the only source of wealth for middle America, especially for blacks and Hispanics. Remarkably, for every dollar of NON-HOME wealth owned by white families, people of color have only one cent.

So when minority families were specifically targeted for high-risk, subprime loans that could be re-packaged and sold for a quick short-term profit, most of their assets were erased. Median wealth fell 66% for Hispanic households and 53% for black households. For whites the decline was 16%.

With a disturbing note of irony, Sanford Weill, the banker largely responsible for the reversal of the mortgage-protecting Glass-Steagall Act, was elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences for "extraordinary accomplishment and a call to serve."

4. We give prison sentences for smoking marijuana, but not for billion-dollar fraud

About half of our world-leading prison population is in jail for non-violent drug offenses. Americans have also been arrested for handing out free food in a park. Mothers in Ohio and Connecticut were jailed for enrolling their kids in out-of-district schools. As of 2003 in California there were 344 individuals serving sentences of 25 years or more for shoplifting as a third offense, in many cases after two non-violent offenses.

How does the market deal with this steady tide of petty crime? It strives for more. The new trend of private prisons is dependent on maintaining a sizable prison population to guarantee profits, with no incentive for rehabilitation.

As the number of inmates has surged, the people who devastated countless American lives "get out of jail free." The savings and loan fraud cost the nation between $300 billion and $500 billion, about 100 times more than the total cost of burglaries in 2010. The financial system bailout has already cost the country $3 trillion. Goldman Sachs packaged bad debt, sold it under a different name, persuaded ratings services to label it AAA, and then bet against their own financial creation by selling it short. Other firms accused of fraud and insider trading were Morgan Stanley, Bear Stearns, Bank of America, Countrywide Financial, and Wells Fargo. The New York Times reported in 2008 that the Justice Department had postponed the bribery or fraud prosecutions of over 50 corporations, choosing instead to enter into agreements involving fines and 'monitoring' periods.

5. You can have health care, if you pay for it

A recent Commonwealth Fund study compared U.S. health care spending to 12 other OECD countries. The data shows that reducing our costs to the median level of spending among the OECD countries would save us $1.5 trillion a year, more than our entire deficit.

Unfortunately, insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies and hospital administrators won't hear of it. There's too much money to be made. Bypass surgery in the U.S. costs 2 to 3 times more than in Great Britain, Canada, France, and Germany. Cataract surgery costs 4 times more.

That's if you can pay for it. There are currently about 50 million uninsured Americans. At the other extreme are $2,400 oxymoronic penthouse hospital suites complete with butler and grand piano. Or, for those who don't get out much, emergency rooms in the home, with private cell-phone access to "concierge doctors."

Inequality in our country is so severe that 120,000 health care workers could have been hired with the salary paid to one man. That's a $40,000 salary for 40 health care workers for every one of the 3,000 counties in the United States. Instead, $5 billion dollars went to one man who reportedly made his first big haul ($4 billion, in 2007) by conspiring with Goldman Sachs in the above-mentioned short sale subterfuge.

The result of ignoring the health needs of the greater population, according to a report in the Annual Review of Public Health, is that "the health rankings of the United States have declined substantially when compared with other nations."

Conclusion

Privatization simply hasn't worked for health care, mortgage banking, higher education, or prison management. There is little incentive for profit-motivated firms to invest in disadvantaged or underemployed Americans. That's why taxes are necessary -- to provide for the common good, and to return some of the gains from 60 years of productivity to the great majority of Americans who contributed to our growth. Unfortunately, the golden door on the Statue of Liberty seems to have an invisible hand holding it shut.
Paul Buchheit

Paul Buchheit is a college teacher, an active member of US Uncut Chicago, founder and developer of social justice and educational websites (UsAgainstGreed.org, PayUpNow.org, RappingHistory.org),

While some Democrats have certainly been part of creating and maintaining these horrific priorities, make no mistake they are ideologically conservative policies. Policies that have created one America - for those at the top and another America for those in the bottom half. The bottom half plays by the rules and pays the price when they make bad decisions and when the upper ten percent make bad decisions. The upper ten percent - America's reinvention of old European aristocracy does not pay for their mistakes - its called socialism for the elite, like Mitt Romney.

What You Need To Know About The Morally Challenged Ed Klein, Author Of “The Amateur.” The Amateur Reads Like an old tabloid that features two headed martians on the cover. Who are the freaks that buy this kind of anti-American conservative trash?


Obama-Hating Anti-American Marine Gets Sympathetic Platform On Fox Propaganda Channel


Fox News Misrepresents EPA Climate Rule. Only a network of anti-American zealots would want America and the world to ignore the dire consequences of global warming. Why do conservative Republicans hate the truth, real values and the Founders tradition of rational inquiry.