Violence... The story so far

Also Known as Special Interests or Welfare for the Rich-American Style
See also: Plutocracy

How it works is this:

• Forget job creation or job security.
• Forget capital formation.
• Remember to bend those generally-accepted accounting rulesin any direction that works in your favor; look for the loopholes that have been put(or left) there especially for you
• Ignore what is good for society; you are privileged.
• Forget conflicts of interest; they just get in your way.
• Set your corporate goal to inflate your stock value as much as possible.
• Hire executives that will look the other way as you and they line your pockets with bonuses related to stock inflation and by cashing in stock options that only dilute other shareholders.
• Hire executives whose only motivation is money. Forget those other means to motivate.
• Forget that what made America great included those other motivations importantlyand still does.
• Forget inspired leadership, there are easier ways to separate the masses from their 401K plans.
• Remember, stock selling price is your and their only measure of merit; capital and job formation are useless ends.
• Get your employees committed to a 401K plan that invests in your own company.
• Build your stock price until the market can stand no more.
• Forget the 401K folks when things collapse. They are just "Palestinians," or "Rwandans."
• Don't worry about fraud; those laws only apply to the 401K crowd.
• Keep your sights on your real goal, to make America even more Plutocratic (rule by the rich) than it is and to get richer in the process.
• When you see storm clouds rising, sell out while your stock price is still high.
• Above all, don't lose any sleep over "bilking" investors, employees, or the economy. You have the "accepted accounting principles" as well as the best lawyers on your side.

The hall of infamy includes many familiar names. See: Hall of INFAMY. That summary is public knowledge. Mr. Bush used this very same welfare-for-the-Rich procedure to enrich himself. Kenneth Lay, Dennis Kozlowski, and David Duncan have nothing on him except corporate profile. No one is claiming Mr. Bush personally committed fraudaccording to the statutes. But did his actions create new jobs or capital at the company? Hardly. Did he leave that company better than he found it? Hardly. Did he win votes in the process? Yes, indeed. Did someone lose money? Yes, again, a lot of it.


We have some suggestions for Congress. But first Democrats must find some backbone and the Republicans must find some statesmanship and defy special interests. That is a little hard to do when you are part of it.

Loans to employees. These shall be limited to unusual relocation expenses only with a maximum of say $300,000 for a CEO and lessor amounts to others within a total overall cap of $1,500,000 in any given year.

Report Corporate Governance Standards. Dual voting standards shall not be allowed.

Stock Options. These shall be limited such that their over-all cumulative, diluting effect on shareholders of record be less than say, one-half percent. They also shall be limited as to the time they may be sold, say not until five years after employment termination. Insider trading shall be illegal with severe penalties in the felony range.

Internal Audit Committees. These shall comprise only outside directors and must have the right to audit any and all books and transactions of the company and subsidiaries, especially capital accounts. These committees shall have the right to meet privately on audit matters and procedures and must do so at least once annually.

Related-Party Transaction. No one on the board shall be allowed to engage in related-party transactions with a public company.

Director Posts and Annual Meetings. Outside directors shall elect from their own number one person to serve as their chairman, and that person shall be vice chairman of the corporation. At least annually, outside directors shall meet on company business in the absence of any other directors or corporate officers at a time and location of their own choosing.

Separation of powers. No public company shall allow its Chief Executive Officer and the Chairman to be the same person.

Accounting Rules. All off-balance sheet transactions, special-purpose entities, and interests shall be fully disclosed. Capitalized expenses shall be listed, especially those categories that include labor or costs of goods sold.

Transactions. All transactions of economic value shall be accounted for in real time under penalty of fraud. The same shall be true of all inventory changes and transfers.

Penalties. Under penalty of fraud and revocation of individual gains via fraudulent procedures, footnotes attesting to the adherence to the above rules shall be included with financial statements by the Audit Committee with all corporate financial officers and their superiors collectively liable for both civil and criminal penalties.

Antitrust Law. Make it unlawful for any corporation with revenues of more than $500,000,000 to have more than 60% of the total revenue of any market it is in. Provide stiff penalties for violations, perhaps $1,000,000 per day for each 2% of the market above 60%.

Oversight. What is needed here is an unimpeachable group accountable only to Congress to oversee and enforce accounting rules. Members of the group shall be appointed to no more than two terms by a Congressional committee made up of an equal (not proportional) number from each of the two major political parties. Leadership of the group shall alternate each term between appointees from each major political party. The Congressional committee responsible shall itself be reconstituted with each new Congress with no member serving more than two terms during his/her lifetime.

Links to Economic Extremism

Education May be Key David Walker, Monday July 29, 2002, The Guardian.
Hard Questions Ken Homer
True Majority. An activist site where the numbers stand up!
Southeast Asia "Sri Lankan-born Asoka Bandarage, Professor of Women's Studies, Mount Holyoke College, Massachusetts, USA, has called on the South Asian Diaspora in the West to help lessen the suffering and violence in their homelands, including Sri Lanka by making efforts to transcend cultural and economic extremism and political violence."