What is happening to the USA??? Give us your input.
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robbiedublu
Member
Sounds like some people are being forced to participate in this thread against their will.
greenpinky
Member
I heard today that most of the republican candidates are in favor or another tax reise for the poor and middle class... man just tax those rich basterds already ill never be that rich so I'm all in favor of the wall street protest. Let go people the least we can do is spread the word how our elected officals and fucking us big time......... how can u stop rape?
S
Scrappy-doo
2012 = 1776 = New World Order = 1984
Been planned for a long, long, long time.
Been planned for a long, long, long time.
Bought Justice and the Supreme Court
Dylan Ratigan
Posted: 11/4/11 01:26 PM ET
The Supreme Court looms over our political landscape like a giant, immovable object. Americans have traditionally respected the court's purview, believing that it serves justice, dispassionately.
Yet the most controversial decision of the last twenty five years -- Bush v. Gore -- has profoundly shaken that sentiment. And other decisions, like the Citizens United ruling that prevented restrictions on corporation and labor outside expenditures in elections, are inviting further skepticism. Just who does the Court serve? Is this another case of Platinum Citizens getting one set of rules, and everyone else getting another set of rules? And is the Court dominated, like the rest of our government, by money? Do we have a bought Supreme Court?
This is a difficult, and troubling, question. And it doesn't have an obvious answer. One place to look is at the Citizens United decision itself. The most remarkable aspects of the court's decision-making in Citizens United is the Court's attitude towards corruption. The traditional rationale behind campaign finance restrictions is that campaign money can corrupt or create the appearance of corruption. The court found that, unless there was an explicit quid pro quo and donations were coordinated with candidates, money was not a corrupting force. If there ever were a rationale to restrict free speech in the form of campaign spending, corruption was it. But since campaign money doesn't corrupt, the Court found, the Constitution prohibits the government from regulating money in politics.
Most people believe in common sense, that if you give someone money, or spend money on someone's behalf, you will have influence over them. Excessive influence over a politician leads to corruption. Yet the Supreme Court doesn't see it this way. How did the Court come to have such odd ideas on corruption?
This goes back to the subtlety of money in our politics, and in particular, the purchase of ideas. In the 1970s, a think tank called the John Olin Foundation began promoting something called law and economics, a school of thought started at the University of Chicago that linked the incentive-based thinking of economics to legal rule-making. At the time, the ideas that led to the massive deregulatory impulses of the next three decades were first taking shape; the law and economics school was simply the legal offshoot of this well-funded pro-corporate trend. This new legal theory asserted that traditional legal concepts like equity and fairness were not as important as efficiency and incentives. And it expanded its influence quickly over law schools and courts very quickly through, well, gobs of money. According to conservative journalist John Miller, "the foundation sank more than $68 million into law and economics, and because of this it had a big impact on legal scholarship, the training of lawyers, and judicial behavior."
Over the next four decades, the Supreme Court, and the judiciary in general, became far more amenable to analyses that left out concepts like fairness. And this was not simply due to the conservatives on the courts, though they led the charge. The Supreme Court helped get rid of usury caps for credit cards, and then struck down state laws capping penalty fees. These two significant decisions -- the Marquette decision in 1978 and Smiley v. Citibank in 1996 -- were unanimous. Bankruptcy filings have naturally spiraled upwards. It wasn't just Congress, the regulators, or the President that deregulated our financial system, it was the Supreme Court as well. And if you want to know why bankers haven't been prosecuted for the financial crisis, well just before the crisis, the court upheld a ruling that investment bankers who knowingly structured sham transactions they knew would be used to falsify Enron's financial statements hadn't committed fraud. Last year, the court ruled for Enron ex-CEO Jeff Skilling.
Today, this concept is so embedded in the judiciary that imposing rules to allow shareholders power over corporate management is now being struck down on the grounds that it would prevent "efficiency, competition, and capital formation." Law schools now churn out lawyers who understand and believe in law and economics, who can be the Supreme Court clerks and legal functionaries to embed these arguments in every nook and cranny of our legal system. Questions of justice are now becoming questions of how to make the law serve the interests of corporations, rather than fundamental issues of liberty. Powerful groups like investment bankers and CEOs can commit unethical acts with no consequence, but more than one in every hundred American men is now incarcerated, most for low level petty violations.
Some people chalk up the Court's problems to a conservative influence on the judiciary. These people point to both Justice Sam Alito and Justice John Roberts, who both argued they would treasure Court precedent during their nomination hearings. It would be hard to find a more outrageous case of not following precedent than Citizens United; corporate money had been restricted for a century. Even more egregious is the case of Justice Clarence Thomas, whose wife took $680,000 of money from the conservative Heritage Foundation, even as he did not disclose the money as required by law on his Federal disclosure forms. Thomas has also helped raise money for the Heritage Foundation. As businessman and ethical advocate Landon Rowland observed, the greatly admired scholar Alexis de Tocqueville distinguished America from corrupt European states by its willingness to subject "the state and its rulers to ordinary courts and the common law." This is no longer the case if a Supreme Court Justice can receive family income from a conservative ideological institution, break the law and not disclose it, and then rule on issues on which that institution has weighed in.
But I think the problem is more fundamental. The bank-friendly cases occurred before these conservatives were on the Court, and they were unanimous decisions. Moreover, just looking at how Democrats responded to these Supreme Court decisions shows that the problem is bipartisan. In response to the Lily Ledbetter decision from the Court on gender-based pay discrimination, Congress passed a statute reversing the Court's mandate. This is good as far as it goes, but where is the grand theory of bringing equity and fairness back to the judicial system? Congress can't, and indeed doesn't, respond every time the court system fails to act in pursuit of justice. The breakdown is becoming so severe that banks can commit rampant foreclosure fraud against debtors and the court system, without consequence. What good is a system of justice that protects the property rights of banks, but not the property rights of anyone else?
Fundamentally, what we need is a new legal theory for the 99%, a new way of looking at corruption. The law and economics school takes a limited approach to the question of justice, but there are seeds of new ways of thinking. Another way of modeling the problem has been pioneered by law professor Zephyr Teachout, who argues there is a structural anti-corruption principle embedded in the Constitution itself in the form of a separation-of-powers. She explores how the founders drafted the Constitution as a response to corruption, and argues that judges need to consider questions of corruption as a Constitutional principle.
Other young scholars are remaking our intellectual landscape- telecommunications and cyberdefense specialist Marvin Ammori argues that the First Amendment is a design principle. Public space, he says, is essential for the First Amendment to operate, and judges need to consider that concept. As we see protesters camped out around the country and tussling with public officials over how they can showcase grievances, this seems far more important than more mundane First Amendment questions that typically deal with questions of flag-burning.
The question of money and the courts is not a simple one. Money does corrupt, but in the case of the courts, it isn't illegal to fund intellectual research, nor should it be. What are needed are new ideas and new legal theories to counter the ones that failed. As we watch the torrents of money pour into our politics, it's becoming increasingly impossible to believe that our national institutions are designed to do anything but protect the interest of a very narrow slice of the population. The Supreme Court's power rests on a tradition of integrity and a belief that it will be just in its use of its power to interpret the law. It's based on a belief that the Court's interests are aligned with the rest of us, that we get the choice of pursuing justice when harmed. As this frays, the Court's power will fray as well. This is in no one's interest. We need a system of justice, but a system of justice that serves all of us.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dylan-ratigan/bought-justice-and-the-su_b_1076518.html
Dylan Ratigan
Posted: 11/4/11 01:26 PM ET
The Supreme Court looms over our political landscape like a giant, immovable object. Americans have traditionally respected the court's purview, believing that it serves justice, dispassionately.
Yet the most controversial decision of the last twenty five years -- Bush v. Gore -- has profoundly shaken that sentiment. And other decisions, like the Citizens United ruling that prevented restrictions on corporation and labor outside expenditures in elections, are inviting further skepticism. Just who does the Court serve? Is this another case of Platinum Citizens getting one set of rules, and everyone else getting another set of rules? And is the Court dominated, like the rest of our government, by money? Do we have a bought Supreme Court?
This is a difficult, and troubling, question. And it doesn't have an obvious answer. One place to look is at the Citizens United decision itself. The most remarkable aspects of the court's decision-making in Citizens United is the Court's attitude towards corruption. The traditional rationale behind campaign finance restrictions is that campaign money can corrupt or create the appearance of corruption. The court found that, unless there was an explicit quid pro quo and donations were coordinated with candidates, money was not a corrupting force. If there ever were a rationale to restrict free speech in the form of campaign spending, corruption was it. But since campaign money doesn't corrupt, the Court found, the Constitution prohibits the government from regulating money in politics.
Most people believe in common sense, that if you give someone money, or spend money on someone's behalf, you will have influence over them. Excessive influence over a politician leads to corruption. Yet the Supreme Court doesn't see it this way. How did the Court come to have such odd ideas on corruption?
This goes back to the subtlety of money in our politics, and in particular, the purchase of ideas. In the 1970s, a think tank called the John Olin Foundation began promoting something called law and economics, a school of thought started at the University of Chicago that linked the incentive-based thinking of economics to legal rule-making. At the time, the ideas that led to the massive deregulatory impulses of the next three decades were first taking shape; the law and economics school was simply the legal offshoot of this well-funded pro-corporate trend. This new legal theory asserted that traditional legal concepts like equity and fairness were not as important as efficiency and incentives. And it expanded its influence quickly over law schools and courts very quickly through, well, gobs of money. According to conservative journalist John Miller, "the foundation sank more than $68 million into law and economics, and because of this it had a big impact on legal scholarship, the training of lawyers, and judicial behavior."
Over the next four decades, the Supreme Court, and the judiciary in general, became far more amenable to analyses that left out concepts like fairness. And this was not simply due to the conservatives on the courts, though they led the charge. The Supreme Court helped get rid of usury caps for credit cards, and then struck down state laws capping penalty fees. These two significant decisions -- the Marquette decision in 1978 and Smiley v. Citibank in 1996 -- were unanimous. Bankruptcy filings have naturally spiraled upwards. It wasn't just Congress, the regulators, or the President that deregulated our financial system, it was the Supreme Court as well. And if you want to know why bankers haven't been prosecuted for the financial crisis, well just before the crisis, the court upheld a ruling that investment bankers who knowingly structured sham transactions they knew would be used to falsify Enron's financial statements hadn't committed fraud. Last year, the court ruled for Enron ex-CEO Jeff Skilling.
Today, this concept is so embedded in the judiciary that imposing rules to allow shareholders power over corporate management is now being struck down on the grounds that it would prevent "efficiency, competition, and capital formation." Law schools now churn out lawyers who understand and believe in law and economics, who can be the Supreme Court clerks and legal functionaries to embed these arguments in every nook and cranny of our legal system. Questions of justice are now becoming questions of how to make the law serve the interests of corporations, rather than fundamental issues of liberty. Powerful groups like investment bankers and CEOs can commit unethical acts with no consequence, but more than one in every hundred American men is now incarcerated, most for low level petty violations.
Some people chalk up the Court's problems to a conservative influence on the judiciary. These people point to both Justice Sam Alito and Justice John Roberts, who both argued they would treasure Court precedent during their nomination hearings. It would be hard to find a more outrageous case of not following precedent than Citizens United; corporate money had been restricted for a century. Even more egregious is the case of Justice Clarence Thomas, whose wife took $680,000 of money from the conservative Heritage Foundation, even as he did not disclose the money as required by law on his Federal disclosure forms. Thomas has also helped raise money for the Heritage Foundation. As businessman and ethical advocate Landon Rowland observed, the greatly admired scholar Alexis de Tocqueville distinguished America from corrupt European states by its willingness to subject "the state and its rulers to ordinary courts and the common law." This is no longer the case if a Supreme Court Justice can receive family income from a conservative ideological institution, break the law and not disclose it, and then rule on issues on which that institution has weighed in.
But I think the problem is more fundamental. The bank-friendly cases occurred before these conservatives were on the Court, and they were unanimous decisions. Moreover, just looking at how Democrats responded to these Supreme Court decisions shows that the problem is bipartisan. In response to the Lily Ledbetter decision from the Court on gender-based pay discrimination, Congress passed a statute reversing the Court's mandate. This is good as far as it goes, but where is the grand theory of bringing equity and fairness back to the judicial system? Congress can't, and indeed doesn't, respond every time the court system fails to act in pursuit of justice. The breakdown is becoming so severe that banks can commit rampant foreclosure fraud against debtors and the court system, without consequence. What good is a system of justice that protects the property rights of banks, but not the property rights of anyone else?
Fundamentally, what we need is a new legal theory for the 99%, a new way of looking at corruption. The law and economics school takes a limited approach to the question of justice, but there are seeds of new ways of thinking. Another way of modeling the problem has been pioneered by law professor Zephyr Teachout, who argues there is a structural anti-corruption principle embedded in the Constitution itself in the form of a separation-of-powers. She explores how the founders drafted the Constitution as a response to corruption, and argues that judges need to consider questions of corruption as a Constitutional principle.
Other young scholars are remaking our intellectual landscape- telecommunications and cyberdefense specialist Marvin Ammori argues that the First Amendment is a design principle. Public space, he says, is essential for the First Amendment to operate, and judges need to consider that concept. As we see protesters camped out around the country and tussling with public officials over how they can showcase grievances, this seems far more important than more mundane First Amendment questions that typically deal with questions of flag-burning.
The question of money and the courts is not a simple one. Money does corrupt, but in the case of the courts, it isn't illegal to fund intellectual research, nor should it be. What are needed are new ideas and new legal theories to counter the ones that failed. As we watch the torrents of money pour into our politics, it's becoming increasingly impossible to believe that our national institutions are designed to do anything but protect the interest of a very narrow slice of the population. The Supreme Court's power rests on a tradition of integrity and a belief that it will be just in its use of its power to interpret the law. It's based on a belief that the Court's interests are aligned with the rest of us, that we get the choice of pursuing justice when harmed. As this frays, the Court's power will fray as well. This is in no one's interest. We need a system of justice, but a system of justice that serves all of us.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dylan-ratigan/bought-justice-and-the-su_b_1076518.html
Ina, US has larger wealth gap than Bulgaria...
US is the 4th worst on the list. Bulgaria isn't in the top 10.
US is the 4th worst on the list. Bulgaria isn't in the top 10.
150 euro, 2k euro wtf does it matter? You guys like numbers? Figure out the real income first instead then. The prices in Bulgaria are very small compared to prices here in Finland for instance...
Prices in USA are small compared to Finland too... Yet they have crazy progressive tax system and the wages are smaller than in USA here...
So your 150 euro sounds like "almost can do for a month and have some fun". And I bet there's barely anyone making purely 150 euro a month. 150 a month is the official number. The rest always comes from sideways : relatives, some shady deals at work, straight stealing(alot of it in Russia with wages of 150euro/month), social security, unofficial sidegig, whatever...
Prices in Russia are huge compared to prices in Bulgaria, yet the wages are even smaller sometimes. Why? How can they survive there? hehe. Nobody's really living purely on wages in those countries. Ask me how much of income completely misses taxes... does 55% sound realistic?
Prices in USA are small compared to Finland too... Yet they have crazy progressive tax system and the wages are smaller than in USA here...
So your 150 euro sounds like "almost can do for a month and have some fun". And I bet there's barely anyone making purely 150 euro a month. 150 a month is the official number. The rest always comes from sideways : relatives, some shady deals at work, straight stealing(alot of it in Russia with wages of 150euro/month), social security, unofficial sidegig, whatever...
Prices in Russia are huge compared to prices in Bulgaria, yet the wages are even smaller sometimes. Why? How can they survive there? hehe. Nobody's really living purely on wages in those countries. Ask me how much of income completely misses taxes... does 55% sound realistic?
Cost of living isn't the factor. Record wage disparity causes macro economic contraction. When the working poor and lower middle class pay a large amount of their income in taxes, less of their money goes into the economy.
Pumping capital back into the economy generates more GDP thus national wealth than just paying interest on national debt. (This is why Cheney said deficits don't matter.) Deficits do matter but the latter delivers less bang for the buck.
Conservative politicians like to say businesses aren't hiring because of uncertainty. They're not hiring because of lackluster demand. If there's a market, they'll respond.
With little hiring and minimum wages 30% lower than 1968, necessary demand won't occur.
Russia isn't even in the top ten wage-disparate nations.
Pumping capital back into the economy generates more GDP thus national wealth than just paying interest on national debt. (This is why Cheney said deficits don't matter.) Deficits do matter but the latter delivers less bang for the buck.
Conservative politicians like to say businesses aren't hiring because of uncertainty. They're not hiring because of lackluster demand. If there's a market, they'll respond.
With little hiring and minimum wages 30% lower than 1968, necessary demand won't occur.
Russia isn't even in the top ten wage-disparate nations.
unless you want to just come up with a number, econometrical and economical statistics and measurements can not be realistically applied to countries like Russia.
But I am talking about the Real Income factor. Prices against income. I'm not sure about the the, but it sure is one hell of a factor..
All Russians receive the same services.
Think twice now. The world is pretty different there.
Paybill isn't that common source of income there...
Didn't say they pay the same taxes. I said they receive the same services. Interesting to note, Russia's tax looks pretty flat.
Most of the tax that a government collects should come from the middle class. That should be our goal to grow the middle and upper middle class while shrinking the lower class. In the situation we currently find ourselves in, we should raise taxes across the board so that everyone feels the pain in addressing our debt issue. We can't just tax the rich more, that will never get passed, we will have to raise taxes across the board and appoint Simpson and Bowles to look at reforming the tax code specifically. Either way we go, there is no quick exit from the situation we are in which means that Americans are going to continue to see slow job growth, stagnant wages, and continued economic uncertainly. The world is simply in trouble right now, the European debt crisis threatens to bring down the EU. China will experience a real estate crisis if their economy doesn't begin to recover. We have a service based economy which simply cannot continue to be the basis for the American economy. We need to be building things. We need to be pumping cash into R&D. We need to be distancing ourselves from the countries that compete with us rather than allowing them to overtake us. This is not to even address our educational failures, thats the biggest risk to our long term prosperity no doubt. Can full of worms and no one wants to touch the third rail issues and admit that American greatness is what is at stake as we shape the future.
Peace.
Peace.
How about no roads? How about no schools? How about no postal service? How about anarchy? I mean sure if you want to live in a world where there is no social contract to protect you and you will have to live like a caveman, then I guess it could work. I think I would prefer the system we have now to complete anarchy.
hahhahaha if you think that roads and schools are built with tax money, we haven't got whole lot to talk about
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