General Electric Bailing Out of NBC

GE in financial trouble is bailing out of NBC, when it should simply dissolve. GE just announced that it was selling its troubled asset NBC to Comcast.

NBC has been a headache for GE from the onset, including NBC Universal. The unit includes Universal Pictures movie studios, the NBC network, the Universal Studios chain of theme parks, and such cable channels as USA, Bravo and Syfy. The unit has suffered from the recession, with a drop in broadcast advertising, and some flops at the box office, such as "Land of the Lost."

The NBC network ranks fourth in ratings and is cutting down on scripted shows to save money. Its operating profit fell 27 percent in the first three quarters of 2009.

The financial crisis has been difficult for GE. In an effort to eliminate debt, GE has sold some businesses, is shopping others, and is chasing nearly $200 billion in stimulus money from worldwide governments in an effort to stabilize the company.

GE slashed its dividend by 68 percent and lost its top bond rating, its stock fell 90 percent below the peak it had in 2000, and GE is still attempting to work through its Hugh losses at its GE Capital lending unit, once the source of half of GE’s profits, in areas like commercial real estate and credit cards.

To make the Comcast deal work GE was required to buy out the 20 percent stake in NBC Universal that is held by French media company Vivendi SA. GE and Comcast are then expected to turn NBC Universal into a joint venture, with Comcast holding a 51 percent. GE would leave the partnership in a few years.

The Comcast deal is expected to bring in needed cash. GE anticipates it will be able to clear away about 17 Billion in debt, a net to GE of $5 to $7 billion from Comcast by forming the partnership, and GE would also be able to transfer to the Joint Venture about $8 to $10 billion in debt.

GE has been beset with litigation over the past decade, on August 4, 2009 the SEC fined General Electric $50 million for breaking accounting rules in two separate cases, misleading investors into believing GE would meet or beat earnings expectations.

GE has faced criminal action regarding its defense related operations. GE was convicted in 1990 of defrauding the U.S. Department of Defense, and again in 1992 on charges of corrupt practices in the sale of jet engines to Israel .

Defense Contracting Fraud
On July 23, 1992, GE pled guilty in federal court to civil and criminal charges of defrauding the Pentagon and agreed to pay $69 million to the U.S. government in fines, one of the largest defense contracting fines ever. The company said in a statement that it took responsibility for the actions of a former marketing employee who, along with an Israeli Air Force General, diverted Pentagon funds to their own bank accounts and to fund Israeli military programs not authorized by the United States. Under the settlement with the Justice Department over violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, GE paid $59.5 million in civil fraud claims and $9.5 million in criminal fines.

GE’s civil and criminal problems stemming from the Israeli military program are by no means isolated. GE is a repeat offender when it comes to Defense Department fraud. The company has repeatedly violated the False Claims Act — a measure originally proposed by Lincoln to protect federal coffers.

When the Project on Government Oversight surveyed defense contractors, it found that General Electric was responsible for 15 instances of fraudulent activity in just a four year period (1990-1994) — more than any other defense contractor.

On August 10, 1995 the U.S. Department of Justice announced (# 95-438) that GE would pay $7.1 million to settle a contract fraud suit initiated by Ian Johnson, an engineer at GE's Aircraft Engines plant in Evendale, Ohio in 1993. Johnson had alleged that GE "sold several thousand jet engines to the military that did not comply with military electrical bonding and electromagnetic interference testing requirements," according to DOJ. (Subsequently, the Air Force tested the engines and found them to be safe.) Johnson filed the suit on behalf of the United States under the qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act.

On January 10, 1997, the U.S. Department of Justice announced (# 97-012) that GE would pay $950,000 to settle allegations that it fraudulently misrepresented that it had conducted certain test procedures on circuit boards for hundreds of aircraft engine controls when in fact the tests were not conducted.

GE paid $5.87 million (along with Martin Marietta) to settle a qui tam suit associated with improper sales of radar systems to Egypt.

GE paid fines between 1990 and 1994 ranging from a $20,000 criminal fine to a $24.6 million civil fine for a variety of defense contracting frauds, including: misrepresentation, money laundering, defective pricing (2 incidents), cost mischarging (3 incidents), false claims, product substitution, conspiracy/conversion of classified documents, procurement fraud and mail fraud.

On July 22, 1992, GE “(pled) guilty to diverting some $26.5 million from the U.S. foreign military aid program used to finance General Electric's sale of F-16 jet engines and support equipment to Israel." (United States v General Electric, Docket #90-CV-792, US DC SD OH, Cincinnati) See Defense Contracting:

Contractor Claims for Legal Costs Associated Stockholder Lawsuits, GAO/NSIAD-95-66
(July 1995)
GE was convicted on February 3, 1990 in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia of defrauding the government out of $10 million for a battlefield computer system. GE pled guilty on May 19, 1985 to charges of fraud and falsifying 108 claims on a missile contract. GE was convicted of defrauding the Air Force out of $800,000 on the Minuteman Missile Project. GE was convicted of bribing the Puerto Rico Water Resources Authority.

Violations of Securities Laws
On September 24, 2004, the SEC announced (# 2004-135) that it had settled charges against GE for failing to fully disclose in proxy statements issued between 1997-2002 all of the retirement benefits granted to former CEO Jack Welch.

Tax issues:
For examples of facility-specific GE tax-abatements up to 2001 see “GE Tax Abatement Ripoffs” published by Multinational Monitor.

Additionally if this weren’t enough to make your hair stand on end, GE also has a less than sterling labor record abroad. In 1988 the International Metalworkers' Federation held a convention of delegates from GE factories in 23 countries. Reports delivered at the gathering showed that the company was depressing wages and weakening unions just about everywhere. Some of the strongest anti union postures were taken by GE in Brazil and Colombia.

GE’s business model can be considered a global system of management by stress, with the company viewing stress and the fear of job loss as the magic formula for productivity and efficiency.

Retirees claim the company has used accounting gimmicks and other means to reduce their pensions.

According to Multinational Monitor magazine, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) cited GE for at least 858 violations of OSHA rules from 1990 through March 2001. From 1994 to 1999, OSHA cited GE for at least 98 “serious” violations. OSHA issues “serious” citations to companies for conditions posing “a substantial probability that death or serious physical harm could result.”

Employment Discrimination
A black worker at GE’s Burkville, Alabama plant filed a suit claiming that General Electric officials fostered a racially hostile environment. GE reached settlements with two ex-GE employees employed at the plant. The workers claimed they were subjected to Ku Klux Klan symbols, swastikas and a hangman’s noose at the plant.

In 1991 GE was assessed over $ 590,000 in association with a disability claim for its refusal to reasonably accommodate a machinist with a back injury. A jury awarded $1.2 million in damages, which the district court reduced to $300,000 in accordance with the statutory cap on ADA damages. The machinist was also awarded $141,110 in front pay and $150,837 in attorney’s fees, according to the ADA newsletter.

Environment and product safety
Persistent concerns about PCB Contamination of the Hudson River from two GE manufacturing plants in Hudson Falls and Fort Edward have caused EPA to study the issue on a continuous basis since the site was listed on the nation’s Superfund priority site list in the early 1980s. Finally, on December 6, 2000, after 16 years of studies, proposals and more studies, EPA announced a 5-year plan to dredge 2.65 million cubic yards of PCB-contaminated sediment along a 40-mile stretch of the river. The cost of EPA’s proposal to GE: $460 million. The high cost of the cleanup has led company officials to mount one of the biggest public relations campaigns ever waged around a toxic waste site. Although EPA and the company signed a Record of Decision agreement in 2002 and numerous cleanup agreements after that, remediation is scheduled to begin during 2009. (For more information also see Clean Up GE)

Until reaching an agreement with EPA, GE denied the problem, sometimes with outright distortions of the truth. At an April 22, 1998 shareholder meeting, GE CEO Jack Welch claimed: “PCBs do not pose adverse health risks.” Testifying in Albany on July 9, 1998, EPA Administrator Carol Browner stated: “GE tells us this contamination is not a problem. GE would have people of the Hudson River believe, and I quote: ‘living in a PCB-laden area is not dangerous.’ But the science tells us the opposite is true ... And concern about PCBs goes beyond cancer ... The science has spoken: PCBs are a serious threat...”

PCBs from GE have also contaminated the Housatonic River in Connecticut, as well as in or near the Coosa River Basin in Georgia (traced to GE's Rome, Georgia plant).

On May 30, 2003 US EPA announced that GE would pay a $ 94,380 penalty to settle a TSCA enforcement action related to the improper storage of PCBs at its Pittsfield, MA facility.

Other Pollution Issues
On March 26, 1998, General Electric agreed to pay a $92,000 fine for previous violations of environmental reporting requirements for toxic releases at its silicone manufacturing plant in Waterford, New York, according to EPA’s regional office. In addition, GE agreed to spend about $112,000 to upgrade local emergency response capabilities in surrounding communities. Between 1991 and 1996, EPA cited GE for 23 violations when toxic releases were un- or underreported. Chemicals involved include dimethyl sulfate, chlorine, 1, 1, 1, -trichloroethane, ammonia, and toluene.

On March 13, 1992, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued a $20,000 fine against General Electric for violations of regulations at the fuel fabrication plant in Wilmington, North Carolina. On May 29, 1991, GE personnel accidentally moved about 320 pounds of uranium to a waste treatment tank. The danger of the mistake was that the size and shape of the waste container caused unsafe concentrations of uranium, which could have led to a nuclear accident. The NRC dispatched a special incident investigation team the same day and an inspection began two days later. The NRC found that the mistake was the result of lax safety controls.

According to documents obtained by Public Citizen under the Freedom of Information Act, GE-designed nuclear reactors around the world have a design flaw that make it virtually certain (90 percent) that in the event of a meltdown, radiation would be released directly into the environment and into surrounding communities, leaving the public without any protection. The NRC acknowledges that the reactor containment structure in GE-built nuclear power plants does not work, but they licensed the reactors anyway. (Also, a dozen or more GE-designed boiling water reactors in the United States and abroad have evidence of cracking in the reactor core shroud — a metal cylinder surrounding the reactor’s radioactive fuel rods.)

On October 18, 2004, the California Department of Pesticide Registration announced that it would seek $202,959 in penalties for violations by GE's Betz Water business of the State of California’s pesticide registration requirements. The matter was ultimately settled in 2005 for $120,916, GE later explained in a letter to the Project on Government Oversight.

In August, 1996 the Florida Department of Environmental Protection informed Greenwich Air Services that it was seeking penalties of $278,555 for violations of the state's hazardous waste law at its Miami facility (the facility was subsequently acquired as a portion of GE's purchase of Greenwich which was consummated in September 1997). According to GE (10-K filed in March 1998), the matter was tentatively settled for $36,270 plus a pledge to perform a supplemental wastewater treatment project.

Human rights
In 1995, a Presidential Advisory Commission revealed details of GE’s human experiments with nuclear radiation. GE ran the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Richland, Washington as part of the U.S. weapons program. Beginning in 1949, General Electric deliberately released radioactive material to see how far downwind it would travel. One cloud drifted 400 miles, all the way down to the California-Oregon border, carrying perhaps thousands of times more radiation than that emitted at Three Mile Island.

In 1986, Representative Edward Markey, D-Massachusetts, held hearings in which it was disclosed that the United States and General Electric had conducted experiments on hundreds of United States citizens who became “nuclear calibration devices for experimenters run amok.” According to Markey: “Too many of these experiments used human subjects that were captive audiences or populations ... considered ‘expendable’ ... the elderly, prisoners and hospital patients who might not have retained their full faculties for informed consent.” One of GE’s most gruesome experiments — disclosed in the Markey hearings — was performed on inmates at a prison in Walla Walla, Washington, near Hanford.

Starting in 1963, 64 prisoners had their scrotums and testes irradiated to determine the effects of radiation on human reproductive organs. Although the inmates were warned about the possibility of sterility and radiation burns, the forms said nothing about the risk of testicular cancer. Markey’s committee heard allegations that, at the time of the experiments, General Electric violated both civil and criminal laws.

Anti-competitive and consumer protection
GE was among four companies that ended up paying New York City over $4 million in 1982 to settle a lawsuit charging that wiring and cables in 754 subway cars were defective.

In 1992 GE agreed to pay $165,000 to settle a suit brought by 11 state attorneys general alleging the company deceptively advertised its light bulbs. According to the state AGs, the ads promised consumers the same amount of light for less energy, but in fact the light bulbs simply delivered less wattage.

GE Capital was ordered to pay $100 million for unfair debt collection practices as part of a 1999 class-action lawsuit settlement. The suit alleged that GE solicited agreements from bankrupt creditors to pay their credit card agreements without notifying bankruptcy courts of the agreements.

GE recalled 3.1 million dishwashers beginning in 1999, stating that a side switch could melt and ignite, presenting a fire hazard. In 2002, the CPSC announced that GE would pay a $1 million fine to settle allegations that the company knowingly failed to report the defects to the CPSC.

Unlawful Debt Collection Practices
On August 7, 1998, 50 States announced a $97 million settlement agreement with General Electric Credit Corporation (GECC) for unlawful debt collection practices from consumers who declared bankruptcy, in association with private label credit cards issued together with Montgomery Ward Credit Corporation. Under the settlement, GECC and Montgomery Ward Credit together paid an estimated $70 million to approximately 70,000 consumers nationwide from whom the companies collected invalid debts. In addition, the companies paid the states attorneys general $24.5 million. GECC also paid $3 million into a consumer education trust fund.

In April 2001, New York State AG Eliot Spitzer won a ruling in state court that, in connection with the dishwasher recall, GE falsely told consumers the problem could not be repaired, prodding customers with partial rebates to buy new GE dishwashers.

A November 1998 Time magazine profile of GE concluded that “there is no starker example of the phenomenon of corporate welfare and vanishing jobs than General Electric Co.”

On July 14, 1998, the U.S. Department of Justice announced (# 98-327) a settlement with GE over anti competitive practices involving restrictions GE had imposed in software licenses with more than 500 hospitals throughout the country. The restrictions prevented the hospitals from competing with GE to service medical equipment at other hospitals and at clinics.

With all this adverse activity, it would be in the public interest to dissolve GE and start another company, apparently the history of this company is one in which we the consumers should be very aware and very cautious!

Bernanke Lacks Sufficient Knowledge to Lead the FED

In Remarks before Congress Bernanke has shown his ignorance of the important issues facing America , and exemplified his lack of ability to lead the FED.

Chairman Bernanke. “If somebody has their wealth in dollars and they are going to buy consumer goods in dollars who is a typical American, then the decline in the dollar, the only effect it has on their buying power is it makes imported goods more expensive”. November 8, 2007

The Facts: Inflation robs those responsible citizens who have their money in Bank CD’s or other savings accounts, as the dollar becomes worth less by inflation (more of it in circulation) it will purchase less. The very definition of inflation is too much money chasing too few goods. The price of the commodity will adjust upward to absorb the excess money. For Example in 1900 the Dollar purchased around $26.00 in goods and services, yet today it can purchase only about $0.25

Chairman Bernanke. “The mandate that Congress gave us is to look at employment and inflation as measured by domestic price growth, …, and I think you would agree we do see risks to inflation and we are taking those into account and want to make sure that prices remain as stable as possible in the United States ”. November 8, 2007

The Facts: (i) Under the Fed we have experienced inflation from which prices have doubled every 20 years, and are accelerating even faster now. Since 1913 we have seen 1929% inflation, and (ii) our Job market has decreased substantially since the 1980’s, with high paying jobs moving to other countries, and unemployment is at a real 20%.

Mr. BERNANKE. “Well, first, our national savings includes corporate savings as well as household savings. If you put those together, you get a positive number, so there is some net savings going on in the United States ”. July 18, 2007

The Facts: A Negative “Consumer” Saving Rate should be very Worrisome!

The U.S. personal saving rate’s negative turn which began to show in 2005 suggested that Americans would curtail their spending and accept a lower standard of living as they pay off rising debts. Or otherwise have no spend-able income available.

Personal saving has been negative since the second quarter of 2005. For 2005 as a whole, current data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) show a personal saving rate of -0.4 percent—a figure that dropped to -1.1 percent in 2006. These readings are well below the 1999-2004 average of 2.2 percent, a good deal below the 1993-98 average of 4.6 percent, and considerably below the 1950-92 norms of 8.6 percent.

Negative saving would seem to point to growing indebtedness and, ultimately, a decline in living standards, which we have evidenced. Low levels of household, private, and especially national saving will as we have seen take a toll over the long run. Economists generally agree that consumer spending decisions are largely explained by the life cycle–permanent income model. According to the model, households estimate the constant-dollar, or real, resources likely to be available to them over a long planning horizon, including in these resources anticipated after-tax income current wealth, and expected movements in asset prices. Given the estimated stream of resources, households plan on maintaining steady growth in real spending over their lifetimes.

The typical summary of this model is that real consumer spending is a constant fraction of “permanent income.” Permanent income is a smoothly growing measure whose present value is equal to the present value of the real resources available to consumers. The fraction of permanent income that is spent may depend on a host of factors, such as demographics, but ones that could be of particular interest are uncertainty and the ability to borrow. It is likely that the more uncertain future income is seen to be, and the more difficult it is to borrow in an emergency, the lower spending will be relative to permanent income.

So to the point, Personal Savings are very important, much more so than Corporate Savings.

Bernanke, obviously is reality impaired, as was his predecessor, or there is a plan unfolding in which this deception is an integral part.

Business as Usual?

The man on the Street has had enough of wars and plunder, unemployment and bank rescue, they are mad as hell and may not take much more.

The latest Afghanistan build up approach by Mr. Obama is just doing business as usual, spending money for the Military Industrial Complex, and the Bankers behind it, and the hell with the men and women who are killed and wounded, they are expendable. In short NO change necessary, except for the face of Obama. Everything else is business as usual.

Comments such as:

“I really wanted to be able to trust Obama... but the truth is that our invasion of Afghanistan under W had nothing to do with 9/11. Nothing at all--pure theater. For Obama to cite 9/11 as prime rationale for staying and escalating operations there is truly, to put it mildly, disingenuous. I thought the man was smarter than this and had more respect for us all. Yes we can? How about: no we should not. 'Cmon man what do you take us for?”

“Anyone in the media ( right or left), or anyone holding office who continues to suppress or censure rational/science based discussion addressing the overwhelming evidence that 9/11 was a "false flag" event, is complicit in the deaths of our troops and hundreds of thousands of innocent citizens!! The probability of the government's theory that 19 men with box cutters directed by a guy in a cave CONSPIRED to attack the U.S., is sick and absurd to almost everyone who takes the time to become informed through diligent research starting with www.ae911truth.org . “

“Apparently there is some kind of 40-year long echo in this country - we've heard all this before - well, I'm glad nobody threw away those early Vietnam military buildup political speeches - most of those phrases will be perfect for America's near future if we just substitute "Afghanistan" for "Vietnam" - no other changes will be needed - luckily, we already have all the material we'll need to cover years of debate and political speeches justifying the escalation Obama's choosing today .”

“What I found most disturbing about O's speech last night was the larger rationale he put forward, beyond the 9/11 justification - that of the "American mission" of providing imperial "leadership" for the rest of the world, intertwined with a concern for "credibility". The US military as a force for "nation building" stability in that part of the world? Does anyone truly believe that? At least the man has kept one of his campaign promises-- to escalate the Afghan war. And he's come through on that particular pledge just prior to his trip to Sweden to receive the Nobel Peace Prize! “

These comments and others like them are springing up all over the net. This is a small sampling of the anger and frustration that permeates America. We were duped into electing another George Bush, we were promised change, and we got it, a new face but the same game plan.

The Breakdown of American Morality Part ll

Corrupt Prosecutors:

The Justice Department, and perhaps all the way to the White House have damaged the image of justice in America . The dedication of conservative power houses such as George W. Bush, Karl Rove, Monica Goodling, and Alberto Gonzales asserting their will and influence upon the judicial system has become extremely disturbing when taken into consideration the ways in which those tasks have been implemented and their end result, the undoing of the Constitution.

But what is even more disturbing it the rapidity in which corruption has spread throughout the entire spectrum of the Justice System at both the State and Federal levels. Prosecutorial corruption is so prevalent that we are advised that more than 20 percent of those convicted of crimes are actually innocent.

No state is immune from political and prosecutorial corruption and some are more prone than others, as George Magazine voted Nevada number one in political corruption, the State is followed closely by Texas , Alabama , and Florida.

Why is this becoming an alarming concern to Americans?

The answer is basic, because we are a nation of Laws, not of kings that rule by arbitrary decisions, yet when a prosecutor abandons the rule of law for reasons of protecting their status, or to hide their inequity, as for an example the fabrication of a Criminal prosecution, concealing evidence of NO crime, presenting to a Grand Jury, (a system that does not work because it is not adversarial) one side of the case and concealing evidence that No crime had been committed, or attempting to destroy the reputation of an individual that was doing the job the prosecutor was supposed to do, but failed, this should concern all Americans.

It has long been recognized that a prosecutor’s duty is to seek justice. In Berger v. United States, 295 U.S. 78 (1935) our Supreme Court declared this mandate recognizing that prosecutors should “prosecute with eagerness and vigor” but may not use “improper methods calculated to produce a wrongful conviction.” But this is exactly what they do, falsify documents, induce witnesses to commit perjury and intimidate those witnesses who defend the accused.

In other words, the rules of law have been bent, as long as the reviewing court determines, based upon their own post-conviction subjective interpretation, that the evidence notwithstanding the alleged misconduct is sufficient to support the conviction, a prosecutor’s deliberate misconduct, e.g. witness intimidation, fabrication of documents, deceptive and false testimony, is judicially tolerated.

This is generally called the “harmless error” rule, if the reviewing court determines that the person is “probably” guilty anyway. Then the “error” of a deliberate prosecutorial misconduct is deemed “harmless.” See, e.g. Cargle v. Mullin, 317 F. 3d 1196 (10th Cir. 2003) (“A prosecutor’s misconduct will require reversal of a conviction only where the misconduct sufficiently infected the trial so as to make it fundamentally unfair.”); Mason v. Mitchell, 320 F. 3d 604 (6th Cir. 2003) (“The misconduct must be so pronounced and persistent that it permeates the entire atmosphere of the trial”).

The problem with this logic is that the true harm is not in the result of the deliberate misconduct, but in the misconduct itself. For example where evidence of a crime has been wrongfully seized, it may be suppressed, what then is the distinction?

Our constitutional democracy works because we have become a nation of laws that evolve as necessary to protect the rights of all citizens. If we create a system that effectively absolves deliberate prosecutorial misconduct based upon subjective interpretation of actual harm, and not the act of misconduct itself, do we not invite and even encourage prosecution misconduct? The answer is yes!

As a civilized society we embrace the liberty interests of law and order. Without laws there can be no “order” as one cannot exist without the other. Now imagine a world where every individual is subject to accountability, except those empowered by the government to enforce those laws, this is America ! We must obey all laws while those who are to enforce them have no such obligation, and no accountability.

In today’s criminal justice system, with an epidemic of wrongful convictions increasingly undermining its confidence, prosecutorial misconduct has become the leading cause of these miscarriages of justice and MUST be addressed. The problem is immense, so much so that the US Supreme Court found it necessary to immunize prosecutors against civil liability based on corrupt practices, which include inter alia, acts of, concealment of evidence and lies and deception in the prosecution of criminal cases, even when they prosecute someone they know never committed any crime. The corrupt prosecutor will often use the Media to create the illusion of guilt. Trying the case in the public arena, where the accused is made to look guilty before any trial on the merits. A search for the truth, the very essence of litigation has been replaced with a struggle to pronounce guilt even where there is none.

Even with this epidemic of prosecutorial misconduct victimizing innocent men and women with wrongful incarceration and even condemning them to death, prosecutors enjoy “absolute immunity” from judicial accountability. In Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U.S. 409 (1976) the Supreme Court concluded that prosecutors, even when they deliberately fabricate evidence, present false evidence, and knowingly use perjured testimony, even when they deliberately prosecute someone they know is innocent, are entitled to “absolute immunity” and cannot be held judicially accountable. The Supreme Court concluded, “The ultimate fairness of the system could be weakened” if prosecutors were held accountable in court for even deliberate misconduct.

This mundane thinking is archaic, used solely to shield intentional wrong doing of the politically connected. Everyone whether in government or outside must be held accountable for their actions when they cause deliberate harm. The operable word here is deliberate.

Add to that the political consequences that make admitting error, the equivalent of career suicide, and a culture that promotes those who will win at any cost; where the most “successful” prosecutors are those who practice the philosophy that “the ends justify the means” and you have a system that invites injustice, and becomes by its very nature inherently corrupt from within.

How can we deny that the absence of accountability is itself an invitation to injustice? If our system can identify the overall numbers of specific prosecutors who have reportedly engaged in deliberate misconduct then is there not a moral responsibility to at the very least ensure that these corrupt individuals never practice law again?

If we identify a doctor that has deliberately engaged in malpractice causing injury to his or her patient, do we not take action to strip them of their license to practice? Why would we demand anything less of a person entrusted to represent “We, the people” in a court of law? Is not the deliberate violation or that most sacred trust at least as equally contemptible, and intolerable, as a physician deliberately engaging in acts of malpractice that victimizes his patients?

The hypocrisy that presently exists is perpetuated by the system itself. Florida being a good case in point, the Florida Supreme Court has repeatedly admonished prosecutors for deliberate misconduct in capital cases, promising that disciplinary actions would follow if that behavior continues, yet not once has the Court actually taken action. This judicial rhetoric is found in case law e.g. In Ruiz v. State, 743 So. 2d 1 ( Fla. 1999) the Florida Supreme Court stated that,“ we warned of the dire consequences of such ‘inexcusable prosecutorial overkill.’” citing, Hill v. State, 477 So. 2d 553 (Fla. 1985) “… yet in spite of our admonishment in Hill and despite subsequent warnings that prosecutorial misconduct will be subject to disciplinary proceedings by the Florida Bar, we never-the-less continue to encounter this problem with unacceptable frequency.” Both Ruiz and Hill were capital cases in which the defendants were sentenced to death; but they’re certainly not the only capital (death sentence) cases in which the Court admonished prosecutors for acts of deliberate misconduct. See, e.g. Garcia v. State, 622 So. 2d 1325 ( Fla. 1993) (“Once again, we are compelled to reiterate the need for propriety, particularly where the death penalty is involved.”); Nowitzke v. State, 572 So. 2d 1346 ( Fla. 1990) (“We are distressed over the lack of propriety and restraint exhibited in the overzealous prosecution of capital cases.”); Garron v. State, 528 So. 2d 353 ( Fla. 1988) (“Such violations of the prosecutor’s duty to seek justice and not merely ‘win’ a death case cannot be condoned by this Court.”); and, Bertolotti v. State, 476 So. 2d 130 (Fla.1985) (“we have recently addressed incidents of prosecutorial misconduct, in the face of repeated admonitions against such overreaching to be grounds for appropriate disciplinary proceedings.”)

All of these cases in which the Florida Supreme Court explicitly recognized acts of prosecutorial misconduct share several things in common, in each of these cases the defendant was sentenced to death (several of these defendants have since been executed) and in each of these cases no actual disciplinary action was taken against the prosecutor found to have engaged in such misconduct.

Two distinct forms of prosecutorial misconduct have accounted for the majority of cases in Florida in which a wrongfully convicted and condemned person was subsequently exonerated by the Courts and released from death row. The first form is an act of prosecutorial misconduct in which a prosecutor is subsequently found to have knowingly withheld material evidence of an exculpatory nature from the defense. In many cases evidence that would have proven the person innocent. The second form are acts of overzealous prosecution in which a prosecutor has a wholly circumstantial case of specious nature, yet proceeds to prosecute by simply manipulating the jury into believing the evidence proves guilt beyond reasonable doubt even though the evidence is legally insufficient to support guilt.

The most recent exoneration released from Florida ’s death row after almost six years of incarceration is John Ballard. After being convicted and condemned to death without any eyewitnesses, no physical or forensic evidence, and no confession; the Florida Supreme Court concluded that the erroneous conviction was the product of overzealous prosecution; that the prosecutor (Deputy Assistant State Attorney Randall McGruther) improperly stacked circumstantial inference upon inference to convince the jury of Ballard’s guilt even though no credible evidence actually supported guilt. See, Ballard v. State, 923 So 2d 475 ( Fla. 2006)

Prosecutorial misconduct is a corruption that acts as a cancer upon the very integrity of our judicial system. This corruption exists only because the judicial system and the State Bar’s allow it to exist. When a group of prosecutors engage in repeated acts of deliberate misconduct resulting in convicting and condemning innocent men and women to death, then those individual prosecutors become the responsibility of society to insist that these prosecutors who have engaged in deliberate misconduct never practice law again. If we are not willing to hold them accountable, then we invite the injustice that inevitably results.

The use of the media, to prosecute a case through the resort of public opinion, where the accused, though innocent, will lose his good name and reputation must be stopped. Sadly the Majority of Americans lack the intelligence to see through the mist, that fog professed by media hype with the prosecutor’s aid.

They buy into media attacks and accusations without seeking the truth behind the campaign. Without ever wondering what really happened, their mind having been molded by the rants of a decisively controlled media, facts then become irrelevant. It is for that reason alone, that people decline to step forward to help. It is this ignorance that allows the Government to keep its citizens in the dark, and allows them to take from us without challenge.

This list of corrupt prosecutors is as endless as there are offices to fill and there are thousands that could be included.

The most extreme injustice conceivable is that of an innocent man or woman being wrongfully convicted and condemned to death, and yet we are executing the innocent.

The Breakdown of American Morality

The breakdown of American morality began very quietly, merely at first a plan to transition America from a producer of goods, in a free market economy, to a service based economy, and it took more than a generation of planning and insight to complete the transition.

But, consider, why would any nation desire to transition is productivity, the real economic backbone of an industrialized country, and thereby reduce the standard of living of its own citizens?

When you have finished reading this essay you will come to understand the darkness of our present society and the real reason, a war based economy and the need for perpetual manpower in that arena.

It began when the United States became the largest modern economy to become a producer of wars as a means to employ its population. It began during a period of relative prosperity, with its focus predominately under the Reagan/Bush Administration.

It was both during the cold war and at the beginning of its end, when policies changed to a global presence, beginning during the Second World War, but gaining its momentum and focus around 1950 with Korea, then Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq, to the planned invasion of Iran, and Syria.

Eventually, the Neoconservatives would find an ear, and before the turn of the century such war mongers as the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) and the Weekly Standard (Rupert Murdock) began to stage the US foreign Policy, many of these insiders were drawn into the George W. Bush administration, where their appetite could be appeased, and our need to be involved in wars of choice, had a ready ear, primarily, incidentally in the oil and drug rich Middle East, in contrast to the 1970’s oil and drug rich Golden Triangle which included Vietnam.

The Golden Triangle is one of Asia ’s two main illicit Opium producing areas. It is an area of around 350,000 square kilometers that overlaps the mountains of four countries of Southeast Asia; Myanmar ( Burma ), Vietnam , Laos , and Thailand , (Other interpretations of the Golden Triangle also include a section of Yunnan Province , ( China .) Along with Afghanistan in the Golden Crescent and Pakistan , it has been one of the most extensive opium-producing areas of Asia and of the world since the 1950s.

The New Direction

George H. W. Bush as President from1989 to 1993 took America into 18 separate conflicts, and another 21 under Reagan 1981-1989. Expanding the military industrial complex, (MIC) even against the advice of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who, in his farewell address in January 1961, warned that “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the ‘military industrial complex’. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”

The Transition which began almost 60 years ago was fully implemented by September 11, 2001, by coincidence or design it was in time for the “terrorist” attack on the World Trade Center . Although history demonstrates, but with cooked intelligence, that the US was unprepared and lacked sufficient knowledge to prevent the attack, the facts present an alarming discrepancy. The administration knew of the planned attack, and “allowed” it to take place, of this there is NO question. A CIA asset Michael Riconisuito advised the Administration through Colin Powell, and John Ashcroft, who refused to act. There are also (9) different admitted communications that warned the Bush Administration of the pending attack.

Indeed, in September 2000, when the Pentagon issued its famous strategy document entitled "Rebuilding America's Defenses," the belief was expressed that the kind of military transformation the planners were considering required "some catastrophic and catalyzing event -- like a new Pearl Harbor,” to make it possible to sell the plan to the American public. They were either prescient or lucky because one year later, they had the "New Pearl Harbor" they had been hoping for.

This New Pearl Harbor idea was the Concept referred to in the PNAC paper developed in the late1990’s, which gave a neoconservative logic for Mid East wars of choice by first strike initiative, and which included the planned invasion of Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Syria. In the Eastern Mediterranean Region, Syria is the only substantial oil producer.

The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, were a bonanza for the American military-industrial complex. This was an event, a "New Pearl Harbor," that some had openly been hoping for. The reason! These attacks gave the perfect pretext to keep military expenses, which had been expected to fall after the demise of the old Soviet Empire, at a high level. Instead, they provided the rationale for dramatically increasing them, by substituting a “War on Terror” and a "War against Islamists" as a replacement for the “War against Communism,” and the "Cold War against the Soviet Union ".

In this new perspective, the gates of military spending could be open and flowing again. The development of ever more sophisticated armaments could go forward and thousands of corporations and hundreds of political districts could continue to reap the benefits. The costs would be born by the taxpayers, by young men and women who die in combat and by remote populations who happen to lie under the rain of bombs about to fall on them.

At the time, no one understood the reasons behind the transition, that there was a purpose in reducing America ’s standard of living, i.e. fewer high paying jobs, and economic despair equals a higher level of enlistment in the armed services, and its supporting industries.

But what are these wars really about? Is it the Oil, Drugs, Territory, Empire Building or merely Economic?

The answer can be quite alarming, considering, the Military Industrial Complex (MIC) is the largest part of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) produced in the United States . But don’t underestimate the value of the Drug trade. The Military intelligence agencies all over the world value it greatly, as it is a large part of their black ops budget.

The MIC is generally defined as a "coalition consisting of the military and industrialists who profit by manufacturing arms and selling them to the government." (War profiteering) Eisenhower related... that until World War II, the United States did not have an armaments industry. Even though "American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well," the United States could "no longer risk emergency improvisation" of the country's national defense.

The fact that the MIC, benefits from international conflicts explains why it has almost always reacted negatively to discussions of international cooperation and detente. Thus, for example, in the late 1940s and early1950s, the Korean War and the "communist threat" were used as a “pretext” by the proponents of military buildup to overrule those who called for limits on military spending.

Representatives of the military-industrial complex, disproportionately ensconced in the State Department, succeeded in having President Truman embark on his famous overhaul of the U.S. foreign policy, which drastically increased the Pentagon budget and expanded the military-industrial establishment.

At the time President Eisenhower warned about the influence that the military-industrial complex exerted upon the government, most Americans believed that a massive Cold War defense budget was necessary for national survival. Today it is no longer necessary to marshal this level of public support for government spending, because the process of ceding control of public activities, including the defense of the United States , to private business is much further advanced.

The United States has and will continue to sacrifice the quality of life for its domestic population at the expense of the military industrial complex. The United States has become a war machine and unless we stop feeding this war machine, we as a nation will never have peace. The United States , in its own way, embodies a fascistic regime, where constant war becomes synonymous with peace and constant propaganda becomes synonymous with truth.

It is because of this giant war complex that America has a need to produce generations of warriors, a generation made ready by the reality of dwindling employment opportunities, and frequent recessions. This evolving into an integral concept of a theme of nationalism, if this sounds familiar it should, “National Socialism”, the theory behind the NAZI regime of Adolph Hitler, which is very closely akin to US foreign and domestic policies.

Germany produced the war machine, the men, the armaments, the assets for the war. Each country Germany over ran produced the remaining goods and services for the German complex.
For Example: Germany lack natural supplies in several key raw materials needed for economic and military operations. Germany obtained its iron ore from Sweden , its manganese and Oil from Russia , and Rubber from the Dutch and British.

In America , the turning point was September 11, 2001 a day of unification and the height of American patriotism, but the stage was actually set in 1981. The incoming presidency of Ronald Reagan and his mentor George, HW Bush.

Wars, especially modern electronic wars, are very murderous, but they are also synonymous with big cost-plus contracts, big profits and big employment for those who produce the required military gear. Wars are the ultimate paradise of profiteers.

Wars are also a way for mediocre politicians to monopolize both the news and the media in their partisan favor by whipping up patriotic fervor and by pushing for narrow-minded nationalism. Indeed, to inflame patriotism and nationalism is an old demagogic trick used to dominate a nation. When that happens, there is a clear danger that democracy and freedom will be eroded, and even disappear, if that development leads to an exacerbated concentration of power and political corruption, which has become self evident in the United States.

The MIC needs wars, many and successive wars, to prosper, and that is the very purpose of their existence. Old military equipment has to be repaired and replaced each time there is a hot war. But to justify the enormous costs of developing ever more deadly weapons, there must be a constant climate of fear and vulnerability.

For example, there are many reports, originating from medical and international observers, that the Israeli attacks against Lebanon and Gaza during the summer of 2006, allowed for the use of “new American Made Weapons”. Such weapons are reported to include depleted uranium (DU) bombs, 'direct energy' weapons and new chemical and biological weapons.

These weapons not only make the act of homicide easier but they also contaminate the environment with radioactive DU particles for decades to come.

Evidence of these ‘directed-energy weapons’ (DEW) were found to have been used in Panama during the 1989 US Invasion, it is a type of weapon that emits energy in an aimed direction without the means of a projectile. It transfers energy to a target for a desired effect. These weapons are very real.

But, in order to build a compact strong enough to steer a democratic country on the path to a permanent war economy it takes an alliance of interests between militarists, industrialists, politicians, sycophants and propagandists. These are the five pillars of the military-industrial complex, as can be found in the United States , and they all have one thing in common, Banks, ownership and control!

How do they make it work?

In 1991, at the end of the Cold War, the U.S. defense budget was $298.9 billion. In 2006, that budget had increased to $447.4 billion, and this does not include the more than $100 billion spent in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. The 2009 budget is $515.4 Billion, and again does not reflect the current wars. It is estimated that American military expenditures represent, at a very minimum, close to if not more than half of total world military outlays (48 percent of the world total in 2005, according to official figures), while the U.S. accounts for less than 5 per cent of world population and about 25 per cent of world total output. As a percentage, the U.S. military expenses gobble up a minimum of 21 percent of the total American federal budget (2006=$2.5 trillion). Such a military budget is larger than the gross domestic product (GDP) of some countries, such as Belgium or Sweden . It is sort of a government within a government.

The 2009 Federal Budget has an outlay of $3.1 Trillion, with a projected income of only $2.7 Trillion. Again the financial cost of the Iraq War and the War in Afghanistan are not part of the defense budget; they are appropriations.

Employment statistics
In 2006, the U.S. Department of Defense employed 2,143,000 people, while it estimates that private defense contractors employ 3,600,000 workers, for a grand total of 5,743,000 defense-related American jobs, or 3.8 percent of the total labor force. In addition, there are close to 25 million veterans in the United States . Therefore, it is safe to say that more than 30 million Americans receive checks which originate directly or indirectly from the U. S. military budget. Assuming conservatively only two voting-age people per household, this translates into a block of some 60 million American voters who have a financial stake in the American military establishment.

The private defense contractors
The five largest American Defense contractors are Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and General Dynamics. They are being followed by Honeywell, Halliburton, BAE Systems and thousands of smaller defense companies and subcontractors. Some, like Lockheed Martin in Bethesda ( Maryland ) and Raytheon in Waltham ( Massachusetts ) draw close to 100 percent of their business from defense contracts. Some others, like Honeywell in Morristown ( New Jersey ), have important consumer goods divisions. All, however, stand to profit when expenditures on weapons procurements increase. In fact, U.S. defense contractors have been enjoying big Pentagon budgets since March 2003, i.e. since the onset of the Iraq war. As a result, they have posted sizable increases in total shareholder returns, ranging from 68 percent (Northrop Grumman) to 164 percent (General Dynamics), from March '03 to September '06.

It should also be noted that private defense contractors play another social role: they are big employers of former generals and former admirals from the U.S. military establishment.

The political establishment
In the U.S., former President George W. Bush, an oilman, and former Vice President Dick Cheney, was a former chairman and CEO of the large oil service company Halliburton in Houston (Texas), epitomize the image of politicians devoted to the growth and development of the military-industrial complex. Their administration expanded the military establishment and they had adopted a militarist foreign policy on a scale not seen since the end of the Cold War and even since the end of World War II. Indeed, under the Bush-Cheney administration, the arms industry became very profitable. Multibillion dollar contracts to sell planes and tanks to various countries in an increasingly lawless world gained full swagger. Close to two-thirds of all arms exports in the world originate from North America .

Congress, for its part, is indebted to defense corporations that operate military plants in each congressman's district or senator's state, besides owing some gratitude to the lobbies that provide funds and media support in election times.

The "think tanks" establishment
The brain-trust and the sycophants behind the war-oriented economy form an interlocking network of Washington-based so-called 'think tanks' that are financed by the rich tax-exempt foundations which have billions of dollars of assets, such as, for example, the John M. Olin Foundation, the Scaife Foundation or the Coors Foundation, etc. Among the most influential and representative think tanks, whose mission is to orient American foreign policy, one finds the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), the Heritage Foundation, the Middle East Media Research Institute, the neoconservative Washington Institute for Near Eastern Policy, the Center for Security Policy, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) Pand the Hudson Institute. Such think tanks serve a double purpose: they provide government officials with policy papers on various topics, usually on the very conservative side; and, they serve as incubators for government departments, supplying them with already trained personnel and providing employment for public officials who are out of office.

The same revolving door that exists between the military establishment and defense contractors is also observed to exist between the Washington-based think tanks and U.S. government departments.

The "propaganda" establishment
The pro-war economy propagandists are to be found in the fundamentally right-wing American media industry, which are directly under the control of the Federal Government, which is also controlled by the same force that controls the media outlets, the large stock holdings by the Banks. This is because the selling of war-oriented policies requires the expertise that only a well-oiled propaganda machine can provide. The most potent propaganda tool is television. And there, Rupert Murdoch’s FOX News Network is unbeatable. There is no American media outlet more openly devoted to the neocon ideology and more committed to supporting new American wars than Fox News. CNN, MSNBC, CBS, NBC and ABC emulate it, but their professionalism prevents them from even coming close to Fox News in biased reporting toward war, and in unabashedly promoting U.S. Global domination.

Fox's propaganda efforts are closely coordinated with other Murdoch-owned print media, such as the Weekly Standard and the New York Post. The Washington Times, which is controlled by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church , the neoconservative New York Sun, and other neocon publications such as the National Review, The New Republic, The American Spectator, the Wall Street Journal, complete the main pro-war propaganda infrastructure.

In conclusion, it is the conjunction of these five pro-war machines, i.e., the bloated military establishment, the large American arms industry, the Neocon pro-war administration with Congress being strongly under the influence of militarist lobbies, the pro-war think tanks network and the pro-war media propagandists that constitutes the framework of the military-industrial complex, of which President Dwight Eisenhower wisely feared the corrosive influence on American society, almost 60 years ago, in 1961.

"Over-grown military establishments are under any form of government inauspicious to liberty, and are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty." --George Washington (1732-1799), 1st US President.

"It is part of the general pattern of misguided policy that our country is now geared to an arms economy which was bred in an artificially induced psychosis of war hysteria and nurtured upon an incessant propaganda of fear." --General Douglas MacArthur, Speech, May 15, 1951

Is it possible now to reverse this trend? It may be too late; Hank Paulson and his successor Timothy Geithner are part of the financial oligarchy, a part of the banking oligarchy, whose interests are not the same as the interests of the American people. Hank Paulson and Timothy Geithner are part of a global banking cartel, the same group of bankers all over the world, who seek to keep interest rates as low as possible, to make it as easy for them to borrow as much as they need. The reason, because when they make a bad bet, their respective governments bail them out with tax payer money. It’s really a war, there’s a global war going on between investors and speculators. Anyone who’s trying to invest money for a decent return, or work for a decent wage is being squeezed out or pushed out by speculators who have access to cheap money through political connections.

It’s not a coincidence that the primary GDP-boosting activities of America are war, and the same individuals that service the war councils are on the board of directors of these banks and in Washington , and on each of the companies that reap the windfalls of domestic and military spending.

Wake UP!

How Many More Jobs Will America Lose?

Have you ever wondered why America has suffered such a remarkable decline, consider; more than 315 major American companies with literally millions of high paying jobs have moved off shore. The list follows!

But consider also that every major bank and manufacturing company has outsourced its employees and actually moved its business to an off shore P. O. Box to avoid taxes, leaving America as a service oriented economy. Jobs are only growing in the following market place e.g. waiters and waitresses; janitors and cleaners; food preparation; nursing aides, orderlies and attendants; cashiers; customer service representatives; retail salespersons; registered nurses; general and operational managers; and post-secondary teachers, only service oriented jobs remain in America.

For decades America practiced the “best” aspects of colonialism, while avoiding the burdens. Unlike other nations which strove to bring the exploited nation into the “system”, America simply exploited.

There was originally no attempt to conquer, colonize, settle, and create an “off shore” America ; it was cash and carry, that is until recently, until America began its current phase of Empire or imperialism.

This worked well in supplying American companies with raw materials and cheap labor so finished products could be sold at many times the cost of production. But as hours and wages began to rise and overtime pay was required, and with laws against pollution being enforced the venues used by American business became less viable. The mega corporations saw the “handwriting” on the wall, and before the final bell, moved to another venue. American business began to look elsewhere, but even as business began to look off shore it needed co-operation from the government.

When Japan became too “expensive” in the 1950s, Korea and Taiwan were utilized. As these countries achieved a level of sophistication, American businesses moved into Third World nations, creating “free zones”, where locals could be exploited and tax breaks obtained.

By the 1980’s Reagan and Bush provided the necessary help in the form of grants, which along with those provided through Mexico and south American nations allowed our manufacturing segment to relocate free of expense, in some cases manufacturing plants were funded by the foreign government.

But as more nations reached the stage America had been in the 1950s/60, competition arose.

By the late 1990s America did not seem aware that China , for example, had taken over the American factories and was producing ‘American’ products under other names and selling them far cheaper.

By the 2000s, many American companies went out of business and/or have been purchased by foreign holdings. Though the company may be registered in America , its factories, labor force, even its owners are located in another country.

The bottom line is that there are fewer jobs for Americans, and less profit remains in America .

The Stock Market Bubble

An example of the mischief caused by this reverse colonialism, where the exploited nations turned around, and invested in American companies, until they literally or virtually, owned them, is that each nation, Korea, India, China, Brazil, etc use the balance of payments deficit to reinvest is American assets, “ownership” in American companies. It is this foreign corporate and national investment in America that is partially responsible for the buoyancy in the Stock Market, through what is called “sovereign wealth funds” (SWF).

SWF Foreign investment funds are funds owned by national governments and financed by the country's foreign currency reserves (dollar, euro, yen), often through their central banks or via direct investments.

The term sovereign wealth fund was introduced in 2005, but the first SEF was introduced in 1953 by the government of Kuwait (' Kuwait Investment Authority,' a commodity SWF). These funds are now major players in the world financial markets.

The combined assets of the major SWFs (owned by 20 governments) have reached over five trillion dollars, and are expected to reach over 10 trillion dollars by 2012. Although the current total amount makes up only some 4 percent of the world's traded securities, the SWFs already have tremendous concentrated financial power. Over half of the SWF assets are owned by oil and gas exporting nations, and about one third by Australia , China , and Singapore . SWFs are aggressive investors and have bought into firms as diverse as Morgan Stanley, General Electric, and Sony.

Although the great meltdown of the American economy seemed to have happened ‘overnight’ it was a long developing series of events, which can only be corrected by returning American manufacturing to America .

Simply put, Americans have no jobs, and no money, so they can not help in any effort to stabilize the economy.

In closing; I would remind the reader that a country cannot close nor balance its trade deficit if its economy is being moved offshore.

Offshore production hits the trade deficit from both ends: goods once produced domestically become imports, and as production moves offshore the ability to export declines. When a U.S. business moves a factory to China , that factory's products cease to be potential exports and become imports.

The following list of corporations that have moved off shore is current as of 2003, more have moved off shore since. This will give you some idea why America is in a state of decline and why the economy is in shambles.
A
Accenture; Adaptec; ADC; Adobe Systems; Advanced Energy Industries; Aetna; Affiliated Computer Services; A.G. Edwards; Agere Systems; Agilent Tech.; AIG; Alamo Rent A Car; Albertson's; Allen Systems Group; Alliance Semiconductor; Allstate; Alpha Thought Global; Amazon.com; AMD; American Express; American Household; American Management Systems; American Standard; Amphenol Corp.; Analog Devices; Andrew Corp.; Anheuser-Busch; AOL; Apple; Applied Materials; A.T. Cross Company; AT&T; AT&T Wireless; A.T. Kearney; Automatic Data Processing; Avanade; Avery Dennison
B
Bank of America; Bank of New York; Bank One; BearingPoint; Bear Stearns; Bechtel; BellSouth; Best Buy; Black & Decker; BMC Software; Boeing; Brocade; Bumble Bee
C
Cadence Design Systems; Capital One; Carrier; Cendant; Cerner Corporation; Charles Schwab; ChevronTexaco; CIBER; Ciena; Cigna; Circuit City, Inc.; Cisco Systems; Citigroup; CNA; Coca-Cola; Cognizant Technology Solutions; Columbia House; Comcast Holdings; Computer Associates; Computer Sciences Corporation; CompuServe; Continental Airlines; Convergys; Cooper Tire & Rubber; Cooper Tools; Countrywide Financial; COVAD Comm.; CSX; Cummins; Cypress Semiconductor
D
Dana Corporation; Delco Remy; Dell Computer; Delphi; Delta Air Lines; Direct TV; Discover; Document Sciences Corp.; Dow Chemical; Dun & Bradstreet; DuPont
E
Earthlink; Eastman Kodak; Eaton Corporation; EDS; Electroglas; Electronics for Imaging; Eli Lilly; EMC; Emerson Electric; En Pointe Technologies; Equifax; Ernst & Young; Ethan Allen; Evolving Systems; Expedia; ExxonMobil
F
Fair Isaac; Fedders Corporation; Federated Dept. Stores; Fidelity Investments; Financial Techologies International; First American Title Ins.; First Data; Fluor; Ford Motor; Franklin Mint; Franklin Templeton; Freeborders; Fruit of the Loom;
G
Gateway; GE Capital; General Electric; General Motors; GlobespanVirata; Goldman Sachs; Goodrich; Google; Greenpoint Mortgage; Guardian Life Insurance;
H
The Hartford Financial Services Group; HealthAxis; Helen of Troy Corp.; Hewitt Associates; Hewlett-Packard; The Holmes Group; Honeywell; HSN; Humana
I
IBM; iGate Corporation; IndyMac Bancorp; Infogain; Innodata Isogen; Innova Solutions; Intel; Intl. Paper; Intuit; Invacare; ITT Educational Services
J
Jabil Circuit; Jacobs Engineering; Jacuzzi; JDS Uniphase; Johnson Controls; Johnson & Johnson; JPMorgan Chase; Juniper Networks
K
KANA Software; Kaiser Permanente; Keane; KeyCorp; KLA-Tencor; Kraft Foods; Kulicke and Soffa Industries; Kwikset;
L
Lawson Software; Lehman Brothers; Levi Strauss; Lexmark International; Lifescan; Lillian Vernon; Linksys; Lionbridge Technologies; LiveBridge; Lockheed Martin; Lowe's; Lucent
M
Maritz; Marshall Fields; Mattel; Maytag; McDATA Corporation; McKinsey & CO; Medtronic; Mellon Bank; Merrill Corporation; Merrill Lynch; Metasolv; MetLife; Microsoft; Monsanto; Morgan Stanley; Motorola
N
Nabco; National City Corporation; National Life; National Semiconductor; NCR Corporation; neoIT; NETGEAR; Network Associates; Newell Rubbermaid; New York Life Insurance Co.; Northwest Airlines
O
Office Depot; Ohio Art; ON Semiconductor; Oracle; OshKosh B'Gosh; Otis Elevator Co.; Outsource Partners International; Owens Corning;
P
palmOne; Parker-Hannifin; Parsons E&C; Pearson Digital Learning; Pericom Semiconductor; Perot Systems; Pfizer; Pitney Bowes; Planar Systems; Portal Software; Pratt & Whitney; Primus Telecom; Procter & Gamble; ProQuest; Providian Financial; Prudential Insurance;
Q
Quark; Qwest Comm.
R
Rainbow Technologies; Radio Shack; Rawlings Sporting Goods; Raytheon Aircraft; RCG Information Technology; Regence Group; Rogers; Rohm & Haas; RR Donnelley & Sons; Russell Corporation
S
Sabre; SAIC; Sallie Mae; Sanmina-SCI; SBC Comm.; SEI Investments; Siebel Systems; Sikorsky; SMC Networks; Solectron; Sovereign Bancorp; Sprint; Sprint PCS; Stanley Furniture; Stanley Works; Starkist Seafood; State Farm Insurance; State Street; StorageTek; StrategicPoint Investment Advisors; Sun Microsystems; SunTrust Banks; Supra Telecom; SurePrep; The Sutherland Group; Sykes Enterprises; Symbol Technologies; Synygy
T
Target; Tecumseh; Telcordia; Teleflex; TeleTech; Tellabs; Teradyne; Texas Inst.; Textron; Thrivent Financial for Lutherans; Time Warner; Tower Automotive; Toys "R" Us; Trans Union; Travelocity; Triquint Semiconductor; Tropical Sportswear; TRW Automotive; Tyco Electronics; Tyco Intl.
U
Union Pacific Railroad; Unisys; UnitedHealth Group Inc.; United Online; United Tech.; USAA
V
Valence Technology; VA Software; Veritas; Verizon; VF Corporation; Vishay
W
Wachovia Bank; Washington Group Intl.; Washington Mutual; WellChoice; Werner Co.; West Corporation; Weyerhaeuser; Whirlpool; Wolverine World Wide;
WorldCom; Wyeth
X
Xpitax
Y
Yahoo!

Let’s Call It What It Is - It’s Reagan’s Fault!

The government, both state and federal, is on a feeding frenzy to save the banks, the real reason is that the banks are the feeding ground for our politicians, in fact any office seeker is beholden to the banks for their financial support. As such there will never be any meaningful control over these institutions.

There are now 140 fewer banks then there was last year, and the too big to fail have gotten even larger, and now have much less competition, as such those too big to fail institutions profits have soared.

Real reform in America will not occur, the system has already transitioned and the constitution has been rendered a nullity. What does this mean for the masses of the population?

We have Geitner’s Bankers view: “Geithner’s “Claim” -the Economy is Rebounding!” "Right now we're focused on getting growth back on track," says Geithner. "And we're not at the point yet where we have to decide exactly what it's going to take."

Ok, so, the economy is rebounding, says Geitner, the government is focused on getting growth back on track, but hasn’t the slightest idea how to do just that!

Leaving the rhetorical question, with most American jobs outsourced, will the economy ever rebound?

It’s time we got real!

People are still losing jobs and at an alarming rate, while those in government are focused on helping the banks, that same irresponsible element that is still doing the same thing that got them in trouble in the first instance. The Banks are still bundling loans and creating derivatives (CDS’S). Although it is at a much lower pace as they are making fewer loans.

Perhaps the process of thinking for the executives of these major banks may be demented, as it appears that they simply don’t care. So far when they fail the government has forced us to come to their rescue, and as the government believes these banks are too big to fail the bankers “know” they won’t be allowed to fail!

So it’s business as usual on Wall Street.

This unemployment cycle had to occur and it was expected by Greenspan, Geitner and Bernanke. The housing bubble was an artificial bubble created by the Bush administration to help take us out of the recession we had entered in 2000. We were already into a recession when the incident of 9/11 occurred, we never came out of that recession until the banks loosened credit and had us take the equity out of our homes. It wasn’t jobs or income that marshaled the economy; it was the easy access to our home equity.

The Banks didn’t care that the housing market was a bubble and the numbers weren’t realistic, or that the consumers would be able long term to cover their mortgages, as they made a lot of money creating these loans and inflating the economy, which caused the housing bubble in the first place. They also created these insurance derivatives to protect themselves when the bubble collapsed, as they knew it would.

The US economy has been in a sad state since the Reagan Bush administration, Reagan was a puppet of the banks, and as the banks controlled Reagan they also controlled each of the fortune 500 companies, they sought more profits. Reagan gave them what they wanted by promoting American businesses to relocate off shore and with them American jobs, and an abundance of cheap labor. It was Reagan that transitioned this economy to a service economy! Reagan the idol of the Republican Party elite was himself a puppet of the Banking interests. Reagan is the culprit that has caused the waste of American jobs.

Now we are simply reaping what Reagan and Bush had sown, followed by Clinton and Nafta and Gatt. Each taking American jobs further disrupting our economy.

The unemployed, those who have filed claims for assistance during 2009 number in excess of 24,003,936. More than 24 million American workers displaced in 2009 Alone. The government acknowledges that 35.6% or 8,545,40 people are hard core unemployed, this does not take into account however (i) those whose benefits have expired and they are simply out of luck, or (ii) those that have accepted part time work as better than nothing, or (iii) those who have taken a cut in pay to work in a less desirable industry.

The jobless rate has now been acknowledged at 10.2 percent of the workforce however this number is very misleading, when we take into account those on aid, on Social Security, those no longer collecting unemployment benefits, and the unemployed we have a tremendous difference, there appears to be more people collecting benefits than there are actually working.

The unemployment rate doesn't include people without jobs who have stopped looking, or those who have settled for part-time jobs. Counting those people, the unemployment rate would be 17.5 percent or higher, the highest since at least 1994, and the worst record for Americans since Ronald Reagan was in office. An alternative gauge of unemployment, which includes discouraged workers and those forced to work part-time, actually rose to 17.5%, the highest on record dating to 1994.

The underemployed - Total hours worked in the economy fell 0.2%. The average workweek was steady at a record-low 33 hours meaning that of those who were employed were working fewer hours and making less money!

Very simply and plainly, high unemployment is going to be around for some time to come ... there is little reason for businesses to hire and we can expect this holiday season to be the worst on record!

There is no need to highlight the terrible predicament the American economy has been placed in by the banks, big business and inadequate administrations. The bank control of Ronald Reagan and the following administrations bear evidence to the tragic state our economy now finds itself.

The Banks because of their greed, and big business seeking to make larger profits for their investors, have disrupted the American economy. Only the reversal of this plan to equalize the citizens of the world and to bring back American jobs will make any meaningful difference. But this will never happen our system of governance has fully transitioned to a corporate form of governance.

Consumer products manufactured overseas means jobs are overseas. We still have access to any product we want because they’re imported, whether or not we’ll be able to afford them is another question and one that will depend on whether we have an income or job. It may also depend on our relationship with those in power!

Eventually there isn't going to be enough income spread among enough of the population to continue the economy even at this reduced standard. The cycle of more productivity from fewer workers will ultimately hit a floor and then unemployment would crash even further.

We need to end the crony capitalism that still thrives under Obama, no more bailouts, no more bonuses, no more mega-players like Goldman Sachs, no more off-shoring American jobs and manufacturing. We need jobs now! And we need a plan that does not contain the banking interest above our own!