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The American Empire in a Changing World



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Showing posts with label corporate welfare. Show all posts
Showing posts with label corporate welfare. Show all posts

Thursday, January 31, 2013

''Meet the Global Corporate “Supra-Government”

From Market Oracle
By Andrew Gavin Marshall

''In the year 2000, of the world’s 100 largest economies, 51 were corporations, while only 49 were countries, based upon national GDP (gross domestic product) and corporate sales. Of the top 200 corporations in 2000, the United States had the largest share with 82, followed by Japan at 41, Germany at 20, and France at 17.

Of the world’s 100 largest economic entities in 2010, 42% were corporations; when looking at the top 150 economic entities, 58% were corporations. The largest corporation in 2010 was Wal-Mart, the 25th largest economic entity on earth, surpassed only by the 24 largest countries in the world, but with greater revenues than the GDP of 171 countries, placing it higher on the list than Norway and Iran.''

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''A Single Intelligence Network for a New World Order''

From Strategic Culture
By Wayne Madsen

''Just as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is becoming a global military past without a distinct enemy, the Central Intelligence Agency, Britain’s MI-6, and other intelligence agencies are increasingly pooling their intelligence and networking their information-sharing networks. To what purpose would such citadels of secrecy wish to cooperate? The answer is simple. In a world of the tiny minority «haves» and the super-majority «have nots», the intelligence agencies, like national armed forces, believe there is safety in numbers. In a conflict between the minority super-wealthy and the rest of society, intelligence agencies are increasingly protecting the interests of corporations and not countries. Intelligence agencies, therefore, have decided to become a global «Panopticon» where no one can hide and no secrets are held.''

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Monday, December 10, 2012

''Google sheltered almost $10bn in Bermuda last year''

From The Telegraph

''The accounts, seen by Bloomberg, show that Google shifted $9.8bn in revenues in 2011 into a Bermuda-based company.

The move, which is perfectly legal, meant the internet giant was able to slash its overall tax bill by almost 50pc, as the country doesn’t have a corporate income tax.

The increase in Google’s revenues routed to Bermuda, disclosed in the November 21 filing by a subsidiary in the Netherlands, could fuel the outrage spreading over corporate tax avoidance.''

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Monday, December 3, 2012

''U.S. Share Of World GDP Has Fallen 32% Since 2001''

sucks having the reserve currency, dont it?....................From ECOMINOES

''In the best blog post I've read in months, Mark McHugh of Across the Street outlines America's economic decline--in both real terms and relative to the rest of the world--since we entered this depression over a decade ago when Greenspan's tech bubble burst. The moral of the story? Printing money doesn't lead to prosperity. On the contrary, it prolongs and exacerbates economic malaise.''

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Thursday, November 29, 2012

''CEOs Use Smokescreen of Federal Debt to Promote Corporate Tax Breaks''

From ALLGOV

''What was promoted as a plan by corporate CEOs to help pay down the federal deficit could really turn into a revenue windfall for some of the largest companies in the U.S.

The Campaign to Fix the Debt, a business group led former Bill Clinton Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles and former U.S. Senator Alan Simpson (R-Wyoming), recently proposed a deficit reduction plan that they contended would require CEOs to pay a higher tax rate.

After examining this proposal, the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), a liberal think tank, concluded that because corporations would score big if their plan was adopted by lawmakers and President Barack Obama, the CEOs would receive greater compensation despite the higher rate.

Among the provisions advocated by the Campaign to Fix the Debt is a territorial tax system, which would allow corporations to bring home overseas profits and pay little or no tax on them. In all, the savings could amount to $134 billion for the 63 publicly-held companies that have joined the Bowles-Simpson group.

The biggest winners would be General Electric ($35.7 billion), Microsoft ($19.4 billion), Merck ($15.5 billion) and Cisco Systems ($14.5 billion).''

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Friday, November 23, 2012

''Permanent War Doctrine''

paid for by the American taxpayer.................From Phantom Report

''Obama II has a brand new type of war in store; welcome the ‘Permanent War Doctrine’. The new ‘permanent war on terror’ has four weapons of choice: the signature weapon is the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), the drone aircraft.

Second is direct action undertaken by Special Forces. Third is the transformation of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) into a paramilitary, tracking and targeting assassination squad and, fourth, is cyber warfare (under the ‘Permanent War Doctrine’ all or most of America’s conventional forces head back home from theatres in Iraq and Afghanistan).''

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Wednesday, November 21, 2012

''The Revolving Door from the Pentagon to the Private Sector''

From GRTV

''What do Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, Raytheon, and Northrop Grumman have in common? Each of these corporations is one of the top five largest defense contractors in the nation. In 2011 alone, the Department of Defense committed to spending nearly $100 billion with just these five companies. To put that in perspective, that is about the same amount spent on the entire federal education budget for 2011.''

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Friday, November 16, 2012

Carney: ''GOP has chance to wage war on corporate welfare''

From Washington Examiner
By Timothy P Carney

''The current lame-duck session of Congress provides a few opportunities for House and Senate Republicans to stake out free-market, populist ground.

Sugar subsidies, bank bailouts and special tax credits for well-connected industries will be on the table between now and the end of the year. In every case, the limited-government position is also the anti-big business position.''

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''Why Healthcare Costs Trillions Less in Canada''

From Health Leaders Media
By Cheryl Clark

''The Maple Leaf nation's government-paid healthcare system, which requires few if any co-payments or deductibles, may provide much higher quality of healthcare services at a fraction of the spending compared with the Medicare program in the United States.''


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Thursday, November 15, 2012

''Sen. Coburn's Report Exposes DOD's Wasteful, Non-Defense Spending''

From The New American

''Although he thinks potential savings could exceed $70 billion over the next 10 years if all of his suggestions were implemented, he also says that his report has just skimmed the surface, and savings could be much larger. He stated,

I prepared this report because the American people expect the Pentagon’s $600 billion annual budget to go toward our nation’s defense.

That isn't happening. Billions of defense dollars are being spent on programs and missions that have little or nothing to do with national security, or are already being performed by other government agencies. Spending more on grocery stores than guns doesn’t make any sense. And using defense dollars to run microbreweries, study Twitter slang, create beef jerky, or examine Star Trek does nothing to defend our nation.''

Monday, November 12, 2012

Nomi Prins: ''Real Danger of “Obamacare”: Insurance Company Takeover of Health Care''

a must read...................From Nomi Prins.com

''Election rhetoric shuns the big picture in favor of the bigger platitude. Now that The Show is over, we are left with the equivalent of a Sunday morning hangover following a binge of promises and lies. We leave the theatre of political spectacle on steroids for the real world of unstable economy, a globally and publicly subsidized financial sector, and increased costs of living on everything from food to education to health-care; outpacing declining median incomes. The average cost for health insurance for a family is $15,745 per year vs. a median income of $50,502, or about half post-tax take-home pay.''

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Sunday, November 4, 2012

Jim Hightower: "Adelson's free-enterprise mirage''

From Jim Hightower.com

''For a reality check on the moral superiority of the rich, however, take a peek at who's now trying to do some of the most egregious mooching ever from the economically-devastated people of Spain. Why it's Adelson, the multibillionaire casino tycoon from Las Vegas! In addition to trying to buy favors from our own government by throwing as much as $100 million into this year's presidential and congressional elections, the far-right Republican extremist is making a huge financial play in Madrid, Spain.''

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Friday, November 2, 2012

''Seven Factors Driving Up Your Health Care Costs''

From Keiser Health News

''There is no one villain in the battle against rising health care costs. Currently, the United States spends more on health care services than any other country, exceeding $2.6 trillion, or about 18 percent of gross domestic product. Most years, medical spending rises faster than inflation and the economy as a whole. Many factors -- and nearly everyone -- contributes to those increases.''

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Thursday, November 1, 2012

''War Revisionism | Gary North''

more proof that the rockefellers/exxon mobil have been running foreign policy in this country since WW1..................

From MisesTV..........''The Carl Davis Lecture, presented at the 2012 Mises Institute Supporters Summit: "The Truth About War: A Revisionist Approach". Recorded at Callaway Gardens, Georgia, on 26 October 2012. Includes an introduction by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.''

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByWW9Va8UIo

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

''When Corporations Rule the World''

From Google Books

 "I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands, and the Republic is destroyed.‎" 

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Thursday, October 18, 2012

''The Dirtiest Congress in History''

great blog/great story..............................From The Price of Oil

''In the current cycle (since January 2011) dirty energy companies have spent at least $43.5 million on influencing federal elections in America.

This means that dirty energy companies spend at least $96,000 every day on corrupting American democracy.''

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Wednesday, October 17, 2012

''American Rentiers''

From Bullion Vault

''Now, mothers want their sons and daughters to work for "the system"... to join the ranks of the bureaucrats... to have an edge... to be in an industry favored by the feds. They know it's almost impossible to get ahead without an "in". The weight of taxes and regulations is just too heavy.

That is a big part of the reason US wages have gone nowhere in the last 40 years... and household incomes are nearly back to where they were two decades ago.

Of course, this phenomenon – zombification – applies to private organizations and businesses as well as the government. As a business ages, it typically changes from a dynamic, outward-looking organization to a stodgy, bureaucratic organization focused on holding onto power and money at all cost.

The big difference between government and private organizations is that only the government has the power to force you to do anything. When private organizations get infested by unproductive zombies, they go broke... or get taken over by more dynamic organizations. Government generally continues favoring the zombies... until the whole country goes broke.''

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''Senator Coburn’s “Wastebook 2012” Names Biggest Waste: Congress''

From the New American

''For each of the past three years, Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) has published his annual Wastebook, and each year the press has had a field day digging into the 200-page report to expose the most outrageous, wasteful, and annoying projects Congress is funding with taxpayer monies. In 2010, for instance, Coburn’s report noted that $200,000 went to research that studied why political candidates “make vague statements,” while his 2011 report exposed squandering of $700,000 to study cow burps, robot dragons, and “bridges to nowhere.''

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Sunday, October 7, 2012

'The Iron Triangle - The Carlisle Group'

''The Carlisle Group is a massive "private equity firm," which raises money from wealthy individuals and companies, and then reinvests the money into private defense companies with extremely high profit margins. It is made up of well known politicians such as George Bush, Sr. and James Baker, and it is one of the most powerful elements of the "military industrial complex," which is a business built around the defense industry being so large and powerful that it able to influence the politics of war. This video discusses the structure of the group and explains its history of many abuses.''

Thursday, September 27, 2012

''In 2012, more soldiers have died from suicide than combat''

Ike was right, Beware the Military Industrial complex!!...............From The Guardian
By James Jeffrey

''The US army has instigated a service-wide "stand down" today, Thursday 27 September, so that soldiers can focus on suicide prevention training. In 2012, more soldiers have died from suicide than combat. The army isn't ignoring the problem and trying to be proactive. The same can be said for how the US deals with its veterans, which gives me pause for thought.

When I left the British army, in 2010, I became a veteran – though that is barely recognised or relevant in the UK. You become a straightforward civilian, severed from your military past. But when I went to study in the US, I discovered my veteran status was enthusiastically acknowledged and lauded.''

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