Tags: Cornered: The New Monopoly Capitalism ... , Barry C. Lynn, Reagan and Univ Chicago Economics Made Our Lives Much Worse
Since 1980 at the start of Reagan Era, the full force of the Chicago Style School of Economics has led to the transfer of wealth from the Middle-Class to the Top One Percent. Profits trumped morals, laws, and regulations. They even removed information that contradicted what they lied about in the EPA and probably many others. We still have not discovered all the crimes on People that Bush and his gang perpetrated on all of us. Bush has reduced the budget every year for Medicare so many doctors dropped Medicare patients or did not take them. But he was happy to give us Medicare D to reward Big Pharma, but as in the Wars and this bill, he did not pay for it. He Also did not pay for his trillion dollar tax cuts!
ECONOMIC ANALYSIS:
Barry C. Lynn's "Cornered: The New Monopoly Capitalism and Economics of Destruction"
Thursday, 4 March 2010
Without antitrust enforcement, monopolies now run America. It will take more than a lawsuit or two to overthrow America's corporatist oligarchy and restore a model of capitalism that protects our rights as property holders and citizens.
Lynn is director of the Markets, Enterprise, and Resiliency Initiative, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, and author of "Too Big to Fail" about the dangers of monopoly capitalism.
He expands on the threat in his newest book titled, "Cornered: The New Monopoly Capitalism and the Economics of Destruction," explaining today's peril given the power of predatory giants.
They control governments, the courts, war and peace, dominant information sources, and essential services, including health care, air and water, what we eat and drink, where we live, what we wear, and school curricula to the highest levels. They own genetic code patents, basic human life elements to be commodified the same as toothpaste, tomatoes or toilet paper.
Omnipotent, they plunder recklessly, ruthlessly at our expense. They're private tryannies, endangering humanity, basic freedoms, environmental sustainability, and planetary survival. Without exaggeration, they're unaccountable, unchecked "weapons of mass destruction." ... http://baltimorechronicle.com/2010/030410Lendman.shtml
Barry C. Lynn http://www.booktv.org/search.aspx?For=Cornered last night on C-Span 2 gave a harrowing account of Reagan ignoring anti-Trust laws, as did Clinton and the Two Bushes has completely changed the economic landscape of America where monopolies now control the pricing of everything we buy. The Chicago School of Economics was implemented to make us a Consumer Society where we gain status by buying more and more and larger and larger homes and second and third homes to flaunt their wealth and affluence.
Essentially one firm controls the eye glasses industry! Of course they keep the names of the many businesses they acquired by force. One auto parts manufacturer controls all the business! As we all know mergers kill jobs, unions, extensive firing of people is done, and no incentive to improve their products or hire more people because they control the market by themselves or through illegal collusion, sometimes openly. If employees threaten or complain about the low pay and low opportunities.
Of course they also hire the best and brightest psychologists and public relation propagandists to control our thoughts as in Orwell's 1984, but considerably more efficient and widespread. We have seen this in spades during the passage of the Healthcare Bill and the post Healthcare Bill period. Now the Healthcare Insurance Industry is arguing that the bill passed does not force them to allow children with pre-existing conditions into their plan!
Seniors in Florida are strongly against the Healthcare Bill. Most are too ignorant about too much healthcare and procedures which have killed Medicare patients according the Dartmouth Study on millions of Medicare Patients with comparable similar illnesses. The book "Overtreated" by Sharon Brownlee, a Health Journalist for 30 plus years, has an exceptional coverage of all the horror stories.
As we have seen in the Food Producer Industry controlled by Big four American and one German corporation who have no compunction or regret about what they have done to the American Families who now struggle to survive. Yes, half of our families make less than $50,000/year where even in lower cost Oregon, it takes $48,000 just for basic necessities such as lodging, food, and everyday needs.
Yes, they go to cheap fast food restaurants and get obese from high Fructose Corn Sugar provided by the Big Four. Cane sugar helps satiate our appetite, but Fructose does not. Fructose is a poison where 30 percent are converted to deadly LDL-2, the heavy fat which causes
plaque and increases our triglycerides.
The ratio of HDL/Triglycerides is a better indicator of Heart Health because it takes into account LDL-2 which leads to Triglycerides but cannot be tested separately from good LDL-1. Today on MSNBC, it was reported that the contents in Fast Food is addictive because it has a liberal combination of sugar, salt, and saturate fats. Only a handful of stuff sold at McDonalds do not contain High Fructose Corn Syrup Sugar. If the label does not say Cane Sugar, it is the Deadly Sugar.
It is unbelievable, but the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is not allowed to regulate chronic poisons in food! The Robber Barons controlled the Supreme Court in 1906 when the law was first implemented.
... The 1906 Food and Drug Act and creation of the FDA
In June 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt signed into law the Food and Drug Act, also known as the "Wiley Act" after its chief advocate.[20] The Act prohibited, under penalty of seizure of goods, the interstate transport of food which had been "adulterated", with that term referring to the addition of fillers of reduced "quality or strength", coloring to conceal "damage or inferiority," formulation with additives "injurious to health," or the use of "filthy, decomposed, or putrid" substances. The act applied similar penalties to the interstate marketing of "adulterated" drugs, in which the "standard of strength, quality, or purity" of the active ingredient was not either stated clearly on the label or listed in the United States Pharmacopoeia or the National Formulary. The act also banned "misbranding" of food and drugs.[21] The responsibility for examining food and drugs for such "adulteration" or "misbranding" was given to Wiley's USDA Bureau of Chemistry.[20]
Wiley used these new regulatory powers to pursue an aggressive campaign against the manufacturers of foods with chemical additives, but the Chemistry Bureau's authority was soon checked by judicial decisions, as well as by the creation of the Board of Food and Drug Inspection and the Referee Board of Consulting Scientific Experts as separate organizations within the USDA in 1907 and 1908 respectively. A 1911 Supreme Courtdecision ruled that the 1906 act did not apply to false claims of therapeutic efficacy,[22] in response to which a 1912 amendment added "false and fraudulent" claims of "curative or therapeutic effect" to the Act's definition of "misbranded." However, these powers continued to be narrowly defined by the courts, which set high standards for proof of fraudulent intent.[20] In 1927, the Bureau of Chemistry's regulatory powers were reorganized under a new USDA body, the Food, Drug, and Insecticide organization. This name was shortened to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) three years later.[23] ...
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the new Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act) into law on June 24, 1938. The new law significantly increased federal regulatory authority over drugs by mandating a pre-market review of the safety of all new drugs, as well as banning false therapeutic claims in drug labeling without requiring that the FDA prove fraudulent intent. The law also authorized factory inspections and expanded enforcement powers, set new regulatory standards for foods, and brought cosmetics and therapeutic devices under federal regulatory authority. This law, though extensively amended in subsequent years, remains the central foundation of FDA regulatory authority to the present day.[20] ...
CRITICISMS OF FDA
Nine FDA scientists appealed to then president-elect Barack Obama over pressures experienced during the George W. Bush presidency, from management to manipulate data, including in relation to the review process for medical devices. Characterized as "corrupted and distorted by current FDA managers, thereby placing the American people at risk," These concerns were also highlighted in the 2006 report[41] on the agency as well.[43]
A recent analysis of the economic discourse regarding certain FDA-administered restrictions finds that published statements by economists very preponderantly support liberalization. The three FDA restrictions under analysis are the permitting of new drugs and devices, the control of manufacturer speech, and the imposition of prescription requirements. Additionally, some economists have argued that in the increasingly complex and diverse food marketplace, the FDA is not equipped to adequately regulate or inspect food.[44]
However, when asking the question whether economists or fundamental economic reasoning favor liberalization of the restrictions, the consensus is disagreement. Economist Daniel Klein suggests, "taboos surround the issue, particularly taboos against the critical examination of fundamentals." He contends, "that there is no market-failure rationale for the restrictions.” Many economists that publish statements regarding the FDA "exhibit a sort of intellectual schizophrenia. In their heart of hearts, they seem to agree that there is no respectable market-failure rationale." Perhaps, certain factors surrounding the political and sociological culture of the regulations keep some economists from speaking openly.[45] ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_and_Drug_Administration
Note that George W. Bush put lobbyists at the head of Regulatory Agencies including the SEC and FDA. Drugs approved by Bush's FDA has killed tens of thousands including Vioxx and Diabetes Drugs.
PS: I strongly urge you to watch this one hour video!
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