Corporate takeover of social services rips off states, starves families

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.seiu668.org/files/2013/02/STOP-Privatization.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.seiu668.org/files/2013/02/STOP-Privatization.gif" /></a></div><span style="font-family: inherit;">We need to have a serious conversation about government spending. No, not the kind that John Boehner and right-wing extremists want to talk about. Rather, the money government is spending to outsource essential social services, paying inflated costs for inefficient corporate management. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;">Our friends at the <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/" rel="nofollow">Center for Media and Democracy</a> have a <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2013/10/12264/profiting-poor-outsourcing-social-services-puts-most-vulnerable-risk">new report</a> on the corporate frenzy to defraud state and local governments and deny services to vulnerable communities -- all to collect huge profits:</span><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">As private corporations like ACS and Maximus rake in hundreds of millions of dollars in massive contracts, and their executives rake in colossal compensation packages, shareholder profits and warped incentives detract from the standards of care provided by these corporations. </blockquote>The CMD report looks at a <a href="http://blog.gulflive.com/mississippi-press-news/2013/04/mississippi_lawmakers_give_fin.html" rel="nofollow">recent bill passed in Mississippi</a> allowing the state's Department of Health Services to privatize government functions such as child protective services and food programs for senior citizens.<br /><br />Mississippi tried this before: it previously hired outside firm <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Maximus" rel="nofollow">Maximus, Inc.</a> to collect overdue child support payments. Maximus charged higher costs while collecting less than the state did in child support payments, according to CMD.<br /><br />So maybe it's just a problem in Mississippi? Definitely not:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">The <em><a href="http://extras.denverpost.com/news/foster0521a.htm" target="_blank">Denver Post</a></em> found a shocking pattern of abuse when it conducted an in-depth investigation of the privatization of Colorado’s foster care system a decade ago. The Post reported that numerous children were molested, abused, and even died in foster homes after the state started contracting with businesses that failed to ensure they were placed in safe homes. The state also paid three times as much to place a child in private foster care as it did in homes that were supervised by the counties.  </blockquote><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ACS" rel="nofollow">Affiliated Computer Services (ACS)</a>, another private firm, won a $1.16 billion contract from the state of Indiana in 2006. By 2008 there was a huge jump in the number of families and senior citizens incorrectly denied food stamps and Medicaid. <br /><br />But these errors, as devastating as they are, weren't simply the result of computer glitches. Instead, they are built into the for-profit framework of corporate-run social services:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">Many question whether these services -- aimed at helping the elderly, single parents, and foster children -- should ever be delivered with a profit motive. As Bob Jacobson of the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families put it, "If you’re a corporation whose very mission is to increase shareholder value, that is automatically in conflict with a social service agency whose sole purpose is to meet the needs of people in the program."</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">Jacobson noted that in the early days of privatizing social services in Wisconsin, contracts with Maximus and others were set up in such a way that "the profit motive was built in to deny benefits." That is, whatever money Maximus saved the government by not enrolling eligible individuals, it got to keep. "There was all sorts of money being siphoned off to build big houses for CEOs and it was perfectly legal."  </blockquote>Despite its reputation of billing the state of Wisconsin for questionable expenses related to its privatized welfare-to-work program, <a href="http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20110519005027/en/MAXIMUS-Awarded-21-Million-Child-Welfare-Contract" rel="nofollow">Maximus won another $21 million bid</a> in 2011 to management the state's foster care services for the next five years.<br /><br />Earlier this year, the state of California's $69 million contract with ACS failed <a href="http://www.ocregister.com/taxdollars/strong-479003-href-http.html" rel="nofollow">37,000 people whose food stamp benefits disappeared</a>. <br /><br />And it isn't just state governments being swindled by private companies to prey on vulnerable families. CMD reports that Maximus just won a contract with the Department of Education to process federal student loan payments -- and it could run taxpayers as much as $848.4 million!<br /><br />It's no surprise then that Maximus's CEO took home $4 million last year and his company made over a billion in revenue. ACS's parent company, Xerox, made $22.3 billion last year and has awarded top executives over $120 million since 2008. <br /><br />Maybe that wouldn't be so bad if either company actually provided reliable services in exchange for the contracts they get from taxpayers. But that's the point: public services and private profits just don't mix.<br /><br />So the next time tea party radicals tell you we have a spending problem, tell them to blame privatization and corporate greed. <br /><br />It's not just robbing taxpayers -- it's killing the poor.

corporate greed government contracting privatization privatized foster care public services Corporate takeover of social services rips off states, starves families

We need to have a serious conversation about government spending. No, not the kind that John Boehner and right-wing extremists want to talk about. Rather, the money government is spending to outsource essential social services, paying inflated costs …

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Wall Street's for-profit "cyber schools" rip off kids and taxpayers

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.alternet.org/files/styles/story_image/public/story_images/education_money.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="http://www.alternet.org/files/styles/story_image/public/story_images/education_money.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>The same anti-worker extremists waging war on the middle class and wringing workers dry are also trying to squeeze profits out of our kids -- and swindle taxpayers in the process.<br /><br />A <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2013/10/12257/junk-bonds-junk-schools-cyber-schools-fleece-taxpayers-phantom-students-and-faili" rel="nofollow">new report from PR Watch</a> has the details on Wall Street's latest scheme using for-profit "cyber schools" to cash in on the public education "market":<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">The data is in and <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/K12_Inc." target="_blank">K12 Inc.'s </a>brand of full-time public "cyber school" is garbage. Not surprising for an educational model kicked off with a $10 million investment from junk-bond king Michael Milken.</blockquote>As the report explains, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Milken" rel="nofollow">ex-con</a> Milken formed several "education" companies including Knowledge Universe and Knowledge Learning. With $10 million invested in his K12 Inc. scam, Milken let fellow junk bond dealer Ron Packard in on the action. And together they raked in millions:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">The duo prepped to exploit the public education sector, and boy, have they. His various educational ventures have made Milken one of the <a href="http://www.forbes.com/profile/michael-milken/">richest men in America</a>, and Packard raked in <a href="http://insiders.morningstar.com/trading/executive-compensation.action?t=LRN&region=USA&culture=en-US" target="_blank">over $16 million</a> in compensation from 2008 to 2012 as <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/K12">CEO of K12 Inc.</a> Almost all of that money came from U.S. taxpayers.  </blockquote>Okay, so they're making a lot of money. At least the kids are getting an education, right? Wrong. Most of the kids don't even exist:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">Some full-time charter schools charge state taxpayers big bucks for students who may only spend a few days or a few weeks in front of a computer before they decide that "virtual" education is not for them -- but the schools keep the cash anyway. </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">Here is the trick. In many states, there is an annual "count date" or dates where heads are counted and state funding is distributed per child. Evidence is mounting that for-profit charters spend a massive amount on advertising to pack in students before the count ("enrollment bursts," one education expert calls it), but once they get the cash, things fall apart. </blockquote>A teacher at one of these virtual schools said three-quarters of the students in one of her classes never logged on, completed any work or responded to phone calls -- yet they remained on her class roster. The "schools" hold on to the taxpayer money allocated based on student head counts even when a majority of those kids decide to transfer back to standard brick-and-mortar schools.<br /><br />And as for the students who stuck with Wall Street's cyber-school scheme, they didn't do too well either:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">With rare exceptions, kids don’t learn sitting in front of a computer all day. </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">Using Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) state data, state performance rankings, and graduation rates, the researchers showed that full-time virtual schools lag significantly behind traditional brick-and-mortar schools. In particular, <a href="http://nepc.colorado.edu/files/nepcrbk12miron.pdf">only 27.7 percent of K12 Inc.</a> online schools met AYP in 2010-2011, compared to 52 percent of public schools.</blockquote>K12 Inc. also specifically targets high-risk students in its recruitment efforts. That's because children who lack homeschool parents with time and motivation tend not to take advantage of the virtual schools or demand more from the service. That means lower costs and more profit for K12 Inc.<br /><br />This is exactly why education doesn't belong in the hands of greedy corporations. But the education racket has some powerful backers -- namely <a href="http://alecexposed.org/" rel="nofollow">ALEC</a>:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">ALEC approved a <a href="http://www.alec.org/model-legislation/the-virtual-public-schools-act/">"model" Virtual Public Schools Act</a> in 2005 at a time when both K12 Inc. and Connections Academy (the second largest for-profit) were corporate sponsors and helped craft the measure.</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">K12 Inc. and ALEC have pushed a national agenda to replace brick-and-mortar classrooms and hands-on teaching with computers and "distance learning."  </blockquote>The anti-worker fanatics trying to disempower and impoverish workers are going after our kids, too. Nothing is sacred.

ALEC corporate greed education reform school privatization Wall Street Wall Street's for-profit "cyber schools" rip off kids and taxpayers

The same anti-worker extremists waging war on the middle class and wringing workers dry are also trying to squeeze profits out of our kids -- and swindle taxpayers in the process.A new report from PR Watch has the details on Wall Street's latest sche…

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Private prisons’ profit scheme: lockup quotas and “low-crime taxes”

<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKngdUrVaaMFr5ZUn4zq8ZtmjIPorCH020-CUUhp39DMnAfdtQjoQhxuBvvU7R3eDcJmW_RVL-6_i3lkCJ4QXGPsIqsSsJtcwGwOxWJS79JlAm2rEvIq2fvbBzN4OSuvEWdBkDYAJQt7bv/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-02-04+at+11.43.09+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKngdUrVaaMFr5ZUn4zq8ZtmjIPorCH020-CUUhp39DMnAfdtQjoQhxuBvvU7R3eDcJmW_RVL-6_i3lkCJ4QXGPsIqsSsJtcwGwOxWJS79JlAm2rEvIq2fvbBzN4OSuvEWdBkDYAJQt7bv/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-02-04+at+11.43.09+AM.png" /></a></div>It would be a good thing if crime levels dropped to historic lows, right? Well, not if your business model relies on high incarceration rates. A <a href="http://www.inthepublicinterest.org/article/criminal-how-lockup-quotas-and-low-crime-taxes-guarantee-profits-private-prison-corporations" rel="nofollow">new report</a> from <a href="http://www.inthepublicinterest.org/" rel="nofollow">In The Public Interest</a> (ITPI) explains how prison industry giants like <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Corrections_Corporation_of_America" rel="nofollow">Corrections Corporation of America</a> are making big profits by locking states into contractual occupancy quotas and “low-crime taxes”:</div><blockquote class="tr_bq">65 percent of the private prison contracts ITPI received and analyzed included occupancy guarantees in the form of quotas or required payments for empty prison cells (a “low-crime tax”). These quotas and low-crime taxes put taxpayers on the hook for guaranteeing profits for private prison corporations.</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">Arizona, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Virginia are locked in contracts with the highest occupancy guarantee requirements, with all quotas requiring between 95% and 100% occupancy. Though crime has dropped by a third in the past decade, an occupancy requirement covering three for-profit prisons has forced taxpayers in Colorado to pay an additional $2 million.</blockquote><div>When the big house is big business, low crime hurts the bottom line, so private prison corporations have cooked up all kinds of schemes to keep their jails full. The ITPI report, titled “Criminal: How Lockup Quotas and 'Low-Crime Taxes' Guarantee Profits for Private Prison Corporations,” says three private prisons in Arizona are administered by contracts that require 100 percent capacity. That's right – the state is obligated by the corporation to keep these prisons full or pay a fee for unused beds. <br /><br /></div><div>Hmm, do you think this kind of system would encourage or discourage criminalization? Well, it doesn’t matter – as long as corporate profits are high.</div><div><br />That’s why CCA pitched the idea to dozens of states last year:</div><blockquote class="tr_bq">In 2012, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the largest for-profit private prison company in the country, sent a letter to 48 state governors offering to buy their public prisons. CCA offered to buy and operate a state’s prison in exchange for a 20-year contract, which would include a 90 percent occupancy rate guarantee for the entire term. Essentially, the state would have to guarantee that its prison would be 90 percent filled for the next 20 years (a quota), or pay the company for unused prison beds if the number of inmates dipped below 90 percent capacity at any point during the contract term (a “low-crime tax” that essentially penalizes taxpayers when prison incarceration rates fall). </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">When policymakers received the 2012 CCA letter, some worried the terms of CCA’s offer would encourage criminal justice officials to seek harsher sentences to maintain the occupancy rates required by a contract inserting occupancy guarantee provisions into prison privatization contracts.</blockquote>Ya think! And even as they work to force states to keep their prisons full, private prison companies push for more draconian sentencing laws. <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/09/private-prisons-occupancy-quota-cca-crime" rel="nofollow">Andy Kroll writes</a> in <em>Mother Jones</em>:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">Private prison companies <a href="http://www.justicepolicy.org/uploads/justicepolicy/documents/gaming_the_system.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">have supported and helped write</a> "three-strike" and "truth-in-sentencing" laws that drive up prison populations. Their livelihoods depend on towns, cities, and states sending more people to prison and keeping them there.</blockquote>Occupancy quotas protect the private companies from changes in the prison population and fluctuations in the crime rate. Meanwhile, they put taxpayers on the hook for reduced incarceration rates – all in the name of sustaining an industry that thrives on throwing people behind bars.<br /><br /><div>Michele Deitch, a criminal justice expert at the University of Texas, told <em><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/19/private-prison-quotas_n_3953483.html" rel="nofollow">Huffington Post</a></em>:</div><blockquote class="tr_bq">It's really shortsighted public policy to do anything that ties the hands of the state. If there are these incentives to keep the private prisons full, then it is reducing the likelihood that states will adopt strategies to reduce prison costs by keeping more people out. When the beds are there, you don't want to leave them empty.</blockquote><div>We’ve reported a lot on the <a href="http://teamsternation.blogspot.com/2012/01/security-worse-at-private-prisons.html">horrible safety record</a> and criminal mismanagement of privately-run prisons. These contracts show once again why privatized prisons are such a bad idea.</div><div></div><div>Unlike state-run prisons, which are actually accountable to taxpayers and not driven by profit, private prison companies are the worst offenders when it comes to poor safety standards, including low staffing and other violations. They’re not in the business of keeping communities safe. They’re in the business of big business – by locking up more and more people and doing it on the cheap.<br /><br />And that’s why private prison corporations like to claim that privatization saves money. But occupancy guarantees prove they do just the opposite. When the prison companies cut corners, the savings go to private profits, not taxpayers who pay more for prisons that are less safe.</div>

CCA corporate greed prison privatization private prisons Private prisons’ profit scheme: lockup quotas and “low-crime taxes”

It would be a good thing if crime levels dropped to historic lows, right? Well, not if your business model relies on high incarceration rates. A new report from In The Public Interest (ITPI) explains how prison industry giants like Corrections Corpor…

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Five years after bailouts, the rich are even richer

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim3PwZwAq804QVMaUCI8VTdd_8Ur6z6fN6R_yjlDgrYB-dKMccggxPbFXBatrwfutHGpAX9LhbrSCPXUNyJapGQwf0mlrCNKZdnjGoWxSd4CO_V4-E8V64Fpjtq28OE4zCQOATWVQ2C3gj/s1600/plunder.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim3PwZwAq804QVMaUCI8VTdd_8Ur6z6fN6R_yjlDgrYB-dKMccggxPbFXBatrwfutHGpAX9LhbrSCPXUNyJapGQwf0mlrCNKZdnjGoWxSd4CO_V4-E8V64Fpjtq28OE4zCQOATWVQ2C3gj/s1600/plunder.jpg" /></a></div>The super-rich are doing super well -- and why not? They deserve it after sending financial markets into a tailspin, plunging the global economy into a deep recession, and bankrupting governments around the world.<br /><br />Oh wait.<br /><br />Over the last three years of recovery, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/17/median-income-falls-inequality_n_3941514.html" rel="nofollow">income for the top five percent has grown more than five percent</a> while income for the rest of us fell.  <br /><em></em><br /><em>Think Progress</em> <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/09/17/2636711/census-income-inequality/" rel="nofollow">reports</a>: <br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">Overall income growth has been paltry since the recession, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/17/median-income-falls-inequality_n_3941514.html" rel="nofollow">according to the Census report</a>. After median household income fell for two years, it has leveled off, seeing virtually no growth over the past two. It was $51,017 in 2012, 8.3 percent lower than in 2007. </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">But the rich are doing far better. The top 5 percent was making $191,157 or more in 2012, while the bottom fifth made $20,599 or less. </blockquote><div>It’s amazing how little has changed in five years. Economist <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/09/17-2" rel="nofollow">Dean Baker writes</a>:</div><blockquote class="tr_bq">As we mark the fifth anniversary of the Wall Street bailouts, it is clear that little has changed in the way they do business. They are still engaging in the same sorts of market manipulation and tax gaming as they did before the crisis. </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">The weak conditions on the bailout money had no lasting effect in areas like executive compensation. The industry itself is more concentrated than ever as the big banks used the crisis to merge with other banks, making them even bigger. And the Dodd-Frank reforms have been watered down to the extent that many are now pointless. </blockquote><div>Five years ago, this seemed impossible. In September of 2008, the world was on the brink of economic meltdown. Governments scrambled to rescue big banks. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson gave grim reports to the nation. They said <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/id/26850571/ns/business-stocks_and_economy/t/bernanke-paulson-congress-must-act-now/" rel="nofollow">unprecedented intervention was needed</a> and they assured us that <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/01/business/economy/01fed.html?_r=0" rel="nofollow">sweeping regulatory reforms</a> would follow.<br /><br />That was right after huge debts that piled up in a shadow banking system popped the housing bubble. The iconic investment giant Lehman Brothers collapsed, sending shockwaves through the world financial system and taking down banks and corporations worldwide. There was long overdue rage directed at the greedy CEOs and bankers who made billions off of predatory subprime mortgages and complex financial instruments – literally <a href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2009/11/01/77791/how-goldman-secretly-bet-on-the.html#.UjngL2zD_cs" rel="nofollow">betting on people losing their homes</a> and lifesavings. <br /><br />There was even <a href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/foreclosuregate-could-force-bank-nationalization" rel="nofollow">talk of nationalizing the banks</a>. At the very least, a <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/03/house.bailout/index.html?section=cnn_latest" rel="nofollow">system overhaul was promised</a>, with tighter regulations to stop the reckless gambling of Wall Street’s “casino culture.”<br /><br />But today the casino is still pulling in huge profits – thanks to taxpayer money that rescued it in the first place. Remember when we were told the taxpayer bailout program called <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/07/24/neil-barofsky-s-bailout-why-tarp-failed.html" rel="nofollow">TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) was necessary to help underwater homeowners</a>? That didn't happen. It was supposed to help banks start lending again as well, and that didn't happen either. The banks sat on enormous stockpiles of money. Even up to the first three months of 2012, <a href="http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2012/05/01/bank-lending-shrinks/" rel="nofollow">major banks cut lending by $24 million</a>.<br /><br />All of that free government money that went to Wall Street resulted in an unprecedented transfer of wealth from the middle class to the super-rich. As the government took on the colossal debts of the high finance fraudsters, it led to soaring deficits and the ensuing budget cuts that devastated public services and the social safety net – all in the name of austerity.<br /><br />It was a grand heist by the rich against middle-class workers and the poor.<br /><br />Five years after the 2008 crash, <a href="http://www.moneynews.com/Economy/Krugman-inequality-education-wealth/2013/09/13/id/525546" rel="nofollow">95 percent of gains made since the recovery have gone to the top 1 percent</a>. Meanwhile for the bottom 60 percent wages have been stagnant or declining. And almost <a href="http://wallstcheatsheet.com/stocks/how-many-americans-are-still-underwater-or-anchored-to-their-homes.html/" rel="nofollow">25 percent of homeowners with mortgages are underwater</a>.<br /><br />So that wonderful recovery we’ve all heard about since the onset of the Great Recession? It’s been a recovery almost exclusively for the Wall Street tycoons who engineered the economic crisis. The rest of us are still paying for it.<br /><br />According to the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/sep/16/us-super-rich-recover-losses-financial-crisis-forbes" rel="nofollow"><em>Guardian</em></a>:</div><blockquote class="tr_bq">Five years after the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/business/financial-crisis" rel="nofollow">financial crisis</a>, America's super-rich have recovered all their losses to see their wealth reach an all-time high.</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">According to <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/luisakroll/2013/09/16/inside-the-2013-forbes-400-facts-and-figures-on-americas-richest/" rel="nofollow">Forbes magazine the 400 wealthiest Americans</a> are worth a record $2.02 trillion, up from $1.7tn in 2012, a collective fortune slightly bigger than Russia's economy. In another sign of fizziness at the top of the economy, the cost to enter the billionaires' club has also gone up to levels not seen since the 2008 crash. In 2013, an aspiring plutocrat needs at least $1.3bn to make the Forbes list</blockquote><div>In the same five years that the rich have been getting richer and workers’ wages remain stagnant, we’ve seen an all-out war on American workers in the form of “right to work” for less laws and other anti-worker attacks by right-wing groups like <a href="http://alecexposed.org/" rel="nofollow">ALEC</a> and the Koch Brothers.<br /><br />Five years is long enough. It’s time to fight back for workers and demand a recovery for the middle class.</div>

bailout bank regulation class warfare corporate greed financial crisis income inequality Lehman Brothers rec Wall Street Crime Five years after bailouts, the rich are even richer

The super-rich are doing super well -- and why not? They deserve it after sending financial markets into a tailspin, plunging the global economy into a deep recession, and bankrupting governments around the world.Oh wait.Over the last three years of …

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The Libertarian Hypocrisy Test

Ever find yourself in a discussion with a self-proclaimed "libertarian" who believes in "free markets?" They can't accept that some rich people aren't rich because they deserve it, but because they pillaged, looted and plundered and then got away with it.<br /><br />Our friend R.J. Eskow wrote a great piece for <a href="http://www.salon.com/2013/09/12/11_questions_to_see_if_libertarians_are_hypocrites/" rel="nofollow">Salon</a> in which he exposes the nuttiness of the libertarian beliefs that order in society arises "spontaneously" and that market forces always produce the best outcome.<br /><br />The <strike><a href="http://benedict%20arnold/" rel="nofollow">Benedict Arnold</a></strike> Koch brothers are big advocates of what they call libertarianism. They spend millions on think tanks and front groups that claim to promote libertarian views -- mostly because that sounds better than "we're tools of greedy corporations." The brothers are notorious for benefiting from huge amounts of government largesse while demanding spending cuts for everyone else. They get big government contracts, enormous ethanol subsidies, use taxpayer-funded roads for logging operations and graze their cattle for free on federal land.<br /><br />So if you find yourself talking to someone who claims to be a libertarian, try the Libertarian Hypocrisy Test out on them:<br /><ol><li>Are unions examples of "spontaneous order"?</li><li>Are you willing to admit that production is the result of many forces, each of which needs to be rewarded?</li><li>Can you acknowledge that employees who bargain with their employer, either individually or collectively, are employing market forces?</li><li>Are you willing to admit that the "free market" requires regulation?</li><li>Do you believe in democracy? If yes, what's wrong with democratic governments that regulate?</li><li>Do you use wealth that wouldn't exist without government in order to preach against government?</li><li>Do you reject the government's protection of your intellectual property?</li><li>Do you recognize that democracy is a form of marketplace?</li><li>Do you recognize that large corporations are a threat to our freedom?</li><li>Do you agree that Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi are parasites?</li><li>Why weren’t you willing to accept as final the judgment against libertarianism rendered decades ago in the free and unfettered marketplace of ideas?</li></ol>Read the whole thing <a href="http://www.salon.com/2013/09/12/11_questions_to_see_if_libertarians_are_hypocrites/" rel="nofollow">here</a>.<br /><br />

corporate greed Koch brothers The Libertarian Hypocrisy Test

Ever find yourself in a discussion with a self-proclaimed "libertarian" who believes in "free markets?" They can't accept that some rich people aren't rich because they deserve it, but because they pillaged, looted and plundered and then got away wit…

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11 shocking facts about US wages and taxes

1. U.S. corporate earnings<a href="http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/03/04/1665281/corporate-profits-worker-income/" rel="nofollow"> rose almost 20 times faster than workers' earnings</a> since the end of 2008. Corporate profit increased at an annualized rate of 20.1 percent but disposable income inched ahead by 1.4 percent annually over the same period, after adjusting for inflation.<br />2. <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/06/30/258388/corporate-profits-recovery/">88 percent</a> of national income growth went to corporate profits from 2009-11, while just one percent went to workers’ wages.<br />3. Total wages<a href="http://money.cnn.com/2012/12/03/news/economy/record-corporate-profits/"> fell to a record low of 43.5 percent of gross domestic product</a> in the third quarter of 2012. Until 1975, wages almost always accounted for at least half of GDP.<br /><div>4. In 1968, when the <a href="http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=10563" rel="nofollow">minimum wage was $10.65 an hour</a> (adjusted for inflation), the U.S. unemployment rate was half of what it is today, 3.7 percent vs. 7.5 percent.<br />5. The<a href="http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=10563" rel="nofollow"> minimum wage adjusted for a 135 percent increase in productivity</a> and inflation since 1968 should be $25 an hour.<br />6. Australia has a<a href="http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=10553" rel="nofollow"> minimum wage of $16</a> and the <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2013/08/08/australian-unemployment-big-issue-in-elections/" rel="nofollow">unemployment rate is 5.7 percent</a>, nearly two points lower than in the U.S.<br />7. The United States ranks<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/04/15/map-how-35-countries-compare-on-child-poverty-the-u-s-is-ranked-34th/" rel="nofollow"> 34th out of 35 developed countries</a> on child poverty (behind Romania).<br />8. <a href="http://www.economicpopulist.org/content/low-pay-keeps-millennials-stuck-home5319">36 percent of the nation's millennials</a> (ages 18 to 31) were living in a parent's home, the highest number in 40 years. 9. The United States has the <a href="http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=10563" rel="nofollow">second-lowest minimum wage</a> of 25 developed countries.<br />10. A 40-hour work week on minimum wage is <a href="http://www.geekosystem.com/40-hour-work-week-minimum-wage/" rel="nofollow">not enough to afford a two-bedroom apartment</a> anywhere in the United States.<br />11. Today, U.S. corporations supply less than 9 percent of federal revenue today because of tax avoidance. In 1952, the <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/12/10/1308981/chart-corporate-profits-skyrocket-while-corporate-taxes-plummet/" rel="nofollow">corporate income tax accounted for about one third of of all federal tax revenue</a>.<br /><br /><br /></div>

corporate greed Jobs wages 11 shocking facts about US wages and taxes

1. U.S. corporate earnings rose almost 20 times faster than workers' earnings since the end of 2008. Corporate profit increased at an annualized rate of 20.1 percent but disposable income inched ahead by 1.4 percent annually over the same period, aft…

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