HoltesThoughts

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Mt. Pelarin and Milton Friedman -- fighting to make the world safe for Oligarchy since the 1940's

Introduction

I've been interested in Milton Friedman since his ideas started competing with the "Austrian School" folks as the alternative to Keynesian inspired economic concepts. His critique of Keynesian economics was blown up by his fanatic disciples into a complete "refutation" of what was status quo economics between the 1940's and the 1970's in favor of free markets, laissez faire, and a narrative that reversed the observations about the depression of those who lived it and blamed "government" for the cause of the Great Depression.

This was the 70's when I was exposed to them for the first time. Headlines talked about how false "Keynesian economics" had been. I didn't see it. I never could accept those arguments on their face, but my way is to give ideas the benefit of the doubt and I believe that whenever confronted with new ideas one has to study them critically and not reject them outright. So I was somewhat swayed by them anyway. I studied them and saw no superior arguments. For that reason I couldn't stomach them enough to embrace them. And since no money was going to come from critiques of them. I realized I wasn't going to be able to afford an advanced economic degree challenging them as all the money was going to those who either genuinely believed those ideas or could pretend to. I changed my major to the more "practical" Business Administration. I still regret that decision.

Naturally in Business School they were even more popular than in the Econ department. They were very convenient to business folks because they validated their freebooting natural beliefs. Business folks love the idea is that you can only go wrong if government tries to intervene in the economic system. The business folks I knew gravitated to Libertarianism as ideology and Republicanism as a means to get access to contracts, contacts and pots of money. Compared to the Austrians Friedman made sense. Friedman's math even mapped to Keynesian math. He later acknowledged that.

Mt. Pelarin Society

It turns out that while they argued interminably, Friedman was basically in the same orbit as other Austrians and was a founding member of the Mt. Pelarin Society. It's "about page states" (Taken 4/15/2014)

"After World War II, in 1947, when many of the values of Western civilization were imperiled, 36 scholars, mostly economists, with some historians and philosophers, were invited by Professor Friedrich von Hayek to meet at Mont Pelerin, near Montreux, Switzerland, to discuss the state and the possible fate of liberalism (in its classical sense) in thinking and practice."

Now the major powers had just defeated the Nazis. Capitalism had survived an onslaught of Fascism and while there was an assault going on from the Bolshevik countries (China and Russia) this statement has to be deconstructed. Bolshevism, it turns out was the straw enemy, but they were as much against "social democracy" as they were Bolshevism. And the Mt. Pelarin society seems have been aimed at coming up with an ideology to fight both. Their real target was the New Deal.

"The group described itself as the Mont Pelerin Society, after the place of the first meeting. It emphasised that it did not intend to create an orthodoxy, to form or align itself with any political party or parties, or to conduct propaganda. Its sole objective was to facilitate an exchange of ideas between like-minded scholars in the hope of strengthening the principles and practice of a free society and to study the workings, virtues, and defects of market-oriented economic systems."

So the Mt. Pelarin society was founded as an agency of the Anti-Communist movement. They've been quite open about it in the past. But they've also been an enemy of Republics having too many democratic attributes and it has the stamp of it's founder (Hayek).

"Members who include high government officials, Nobel prize recipients, journalists, economic and financial experts, and legal scholars from all over the world, come regularly together to present the most current analysis of ideas, trends and events."

And Milton Friedman was a founding member

Source:https://www.montpelerin.org/montpelerin/images/photos/miltonFriedman.jpg"
Milton Friedman (in light coat and with hat, in the centre) with friends in an excursion at the first meeting of the Mont Pelerin Society in 1947.
[src: https://www.montpelerin.org/montpelerin/mpsAbout.html]

Friedman, Mt. Pelarin and the Austrians

Now you wouldn't think of Milton Friedman as important in 1947. And the Austrians, almost all of them, hated some of his ideas, especially the notion that government can have any role in controlling economics other than staying out of the way of the Free Market or, sometimes, ending the Reserve Banking system. But Friedman gives his credit to the Mt. Pelarin Society in this 1995 interview:

What really got me started in policy and what led to Capitalism and Freedom was, in an indirect way, the Mont Pelerin Society. The first Mont Pelerin Society meeting was in 1947 in Switzerland. Hayek arranged it. It was his idea.

So he gives credit to Hayek, Mont Pelarin and the people he met there.

"Mont Pelerin was the first time that I came into contact with people like Hayek, Lionel Robbins, and the European contingent of that time. That widened my perspective about issues and policy."

He says:

"The Mont Pelerin Society was people who were deeply concerned about issues. It was people with whom you shared a basic common belief, who at home were isolated. Its great contribution was that it provided a week when people like that could get together and open their hearts and minds and not have to worry about whether somebody was going to stick a knife in their back--especially for people in countries where they were isolated." Src: Reason Magazine: http://reason.com/archives/1995/06/01/best-of-both-worlds/2

So regardless of how much Austrians, Friedmanista Monetarists, and others fight, they all share a common core belief.

But what is that belief?

Friedman and the Austrians

Friedman wasn't an Austrian Fanatic. He believed that if the government simply controlled the money supply so that enough money, and no more, was available to business and banks everything else would go well. He really believed in Laissez Faire. In that belief he overlapped the Austrians. Both believed that business people would never do crazy things, speculate, or recklessly gamble and so so the only role of Government was to keep the Government out of business. Friedman's monetary ideas received criticism from Austrians because Austrians preferred "hard money" and didn't trust them, but otherwise he and they overlapped a lot.

And Friedman credits the Mt. Pelarin society and the Volker foundation that funded them for his writings:

"The reason the Society ever happened was that Hayek had written The Road to Serfdom, which attracted the attention [of Harold Luhnow who had control of] the Volker Foundation, and it was the Volker Foundation that financed the American participation in the Mont Pelerin Society. A Swiss group financed the Swiss and European participation." ([] added for clarification)

The Volker Foundation may have been founded by William Volker, but it was used after his death by it's trustee Harold Luhnow to fund Right Wing and anti-Communist efforts to provide an alternative to the socialist influenced economics of the Keynesian school and people like John Kenneth Galbraith who were seen as too "socialist". Ostensibly the enemy was communism, but the RW then as now preferred to see anyone championing ordinary citizens or labor as "communists". At the time most academics still remembered the Great Depression and were rightfully skeptical about pure capitalism or laissez Faire. The task of Luhnow was to find and cultivate people like Hayek and Friedman as alternatives to "leftists" and funded them to combat liberalism as it had evolved in the 30's and 40's. Friedman writes:

In the middle '50s, the Volker Foundation undertook a program of summer institutes for junior academics who were favorably inclined toward a free-market point of view or were interested in such issues. Capitalism and Freedom was based on a series of lectures that I gave at one of those seminars.

Friedman also writes:

"Those seminars forced me to systematize my thoughts and present them in a coherent way. And they also provided a very good audience because the people who were there were lively, outspoken, didn't hesitate to criticize. It was a very good audience. There was a lot of free time as well for discussions outside of the formal seminar. And I learned a great deal, not only from the students who were there, but also the fellow lecturers."

Murray Rothbard acknowledges that he was recruited and paid by the Volker Foundation at the beginning of his career. Friedman and Hayek were also recruited by Luhnow. He was playing a long game. The goal was to recruit students and future professors to the libertarian and RW cause.

Milton Friedman and the IRS

The Republicans would love to get rid of the IRS, but they wrote it's codes and created it. And Milton Friedman takes credit for creating it when he was an employee of the Democrats he had a lifelong hatred of. An online journal [The Economic Policy Journal] gives him credit for creating the Income tax we live under:

"I was an employee at the Treasury Department. We were in a wartime situation. How do you raise the enormous amount of taxes you need for wartime? We were all in favor of cutting inflation. I wasn't as sophisticated about how to do it then as I would be now, but there's no doubt that one of the ways to avoid inflation was to finance as large a fraction of current spending with tax money as possible."

Apparently Friedman, with like minded colleagues deserves credit for moderating the inflation of World War II by using the Income Tax, not only to finance it, but to ensure that the financing of the war limited the impact on the financier class. He continued during the interview:

"In World War I, a very small fraction of the total war expenditure was financed by taxes, so we had a doubling of prices during the war and after the war. At the outbreak of World War II, the Treasury was determined not to make the same mistake again."

But the problem was that if they increased taxes many people would be unable to pay them "post hoc." So Friedman came up with the brilliant idea that it would be smarter to make the employer withhold those taxes.

"You could not do that during wartime or peacetime without withholding. And so people at the Treasury tax research department, where I was working, investigated various methods of withholding. I was one of the small technical group that worked on developing it."

Essentially the income tax went from being a tax figured up on surplus at the end of the year, to being a rent charged on labor by government and with-held by employers. This became the model for all sorts of taxes, and also for employers making employees pay for employee benefits out of their pay. Friedman stated at the time:

"One of the major opponents of the idea was the IRS. Because every organization knows that the only way you can do anything is the way they've always been doing it. This was something new, and they kept telling us how impossible it was. It was a very interesting and very challenging intellectual task. I played a significant role, no question about it, in introducing withholding. I think it's a great mistake for peacetime, but in 1941-43, all of us were concentrating on the war. I have no apologies for it, but I really wish we hadn't found it necessary and I wish there were some way of abolishing withholding now."

http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2014/04/how-milton-friedman-helped-invent.html

If one thinks of wages as something that ought to be a laborer's personal property and of it as improper to pay labor less than their labor is worth, then this method of raising money to fight a war might seem improper. Further if one thinks that government shouldn't be getting in the way between the master and his absolute right to pay or not pay his slaves (labor) based on their signature with blood on a contract, then income taxes seem an infringement on that absolute property and contractual right as well.

Jonah Goldberg (who is right here for the wrong reasons) notes:

"Withholding numbs workers to the pain of their taxes. As the Treasury Department Web site explained as recently as 2009: Tax withholding “greatly eased the collection of the tax for both the taxpayer and the Bureau of Internal Revenue. However, it also greatly reduced the taxpayer’s awareness of the amount of tax being collected, i.e. it reduced the transparency of the tax, which made it easier to raise taxes in the future.” (Oddly, that fact sheet no longer appears on Treasury’s Web site)."[Src: http://www.aei.org/article/economics/fiscal-policy/taxes/automatic-tax-withholding/]

A friend shared a story that Friedman boasted that this made the IRS less progressive and boasted about saving business from high taxes by instituting it. I can't find the quote, but by inventing with-holding he did make it easier for the income tax to go from being a purely progressive instrument under the tutelage of Henry C. Simons, to a tool of regressive taxation starting during World War II, and becoming more and more obvious each year. Goldberg and Rothbard have other complaints: http://archive.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard43.html

But of course Rothbard and his bunch saw the problem differently from me. To me the problem is too much power for business oligarchs. To Rothbard the problem was too much government power to limit business oligarchs.

Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Fighting Democracy since 1964

Charles Koch recently wrote a defense of his efforts which he published on the Wall Street Journal in which he stated that he believed in basic principles that he claims define us country. For him these principles are:

..."the principles that enable people to improve their lives. It is those principles—the principles of a free society—that have shaped my life, my family, our company and America itself."

Okay, free society sounds good to me, too. But then he continues:

"Unfortunately, the fundamental concepts of dignity, respect, equality before the law and personal freedom are under attack by the nation's own government."

Wait a minute! He's talking about Democrats, Democratic rule, civil rights, etc ... We are the ones attacking equality before the law? The statistics show that racial oppression is still alive and well. The Koch sponsored ALEC has legitimized murder of innocent folks on the grounds of "Stand your Ground" laws. His funding of organizations fighting for prohibition/abolition of abortion rights has started people back on the road of back alley abortions and use of dangerous drugs to terminate pregnancies without a doctor, already starting to kill people in areas where they've closed all the Ob/Gyn clinics. Equality before the law? He's got that with Citizens United by the Supreme court giving his corporation all the private, separate advantage it could want to bribe and influence politicians with impunity. He funded the Federalist Society that put those court justices on the bench. If his principles are under government assault they are from his own groups.

So anyway, he sees this world, apparently, on the John Birch Society principles he was taught as a child. And he says he has been fighting for his principles.

"That's why, if we want to restore a free society and create greater well-being and opportunity for all Americans, we have no choice but to fight for those principles. I have been doing so for more than 50 years, primarily through educational efforts. It was only in the past decade that I realized the need to also engage in the political process."

50 years ago was 1964. So he seems to feel that somehow civil rights was an infringement on personal freedom, that Lyndon Johnson's war on poverty was a war on his personal freedom. So it seems to me that Charles Koch seems to have different definitions of all these terms than the rest of us. If he's been fighting government tyranny since 1964, who is his enemy? Is it the Federal Government, or those given protection starting in 1964? Women's liberation, civil rights, religious freedom, all have been growing since 1964. And as for an "enemy" his father put out a bounty on John F. Kennedy shortly before his death in 1964. So who is Koch fighting? The Kennedy Administration? (eww, yes).

"A truly free society is based on a vision of respect for people and what they value. In a truly free society, any business that disrespects its customers will fail, and deserves to do so."

I think we can all agree that a truly free society is based on respect for all people and what they value. Keyword is "all." If one only respects the values of a minority of wealthy people, or of a particular sect, that is not a truly free society. Unfortunately, if he's right that our society has been under attack, perhaps that accounts for the concentration of wealth and power and the oligarchic competition that has replaced a genuine free-market with a free-booting market. Unfortunately what the owners of a business do with their money usually is their own business and ought not to involve their business. When one is as powerful and controls so much business as the Koch's do, then one is no longer a simple "private enterprise" but has such market control that people can't avoid buying one's products even if they want to; unless they completely withdraw from the economy.

"The same should be true of any government that disrespects its citizens.

Except I don't see any evidence that the Obama administration disrespects his citizens, even the ones who disrespect him. But I do see evidence that the Koch's and others disrespect democracy, disrespect majority rule, and are aiming to strip voting and other rights from citizens, and seem to be wanting to transfer those powers to a money based election system. One dollar one vote.

The central belief and fatal conceit of the current administration is that you are incapable of running your own life, but those in power are capable of running it for you. This is the essence of big government and collectivism."

But who has the government been disrespecting for 50 years? The Koch's have gotten richer and richer. Their father passed away and now they live on a massive inheritance they themselves would not have earned without help. He quotes Jefferson:

"More than 200 years ago, Thomas Jefferson warned that this could happen. "The natural progress of things," Jefferson wrote, "is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." He knew that no government could possibly run citizens' lives for the better."

Actually Jefferson's theories of Government were funded on Lockean principles of commonwealth and commonweal. A government "of the people, by the people and for the people" is a government where people run their own lives. Neither at the dictates of a CEO dictator or of a demagogic dictator. He also warned about the power of monopolistic companies like the East India Company -- or Koch industries -- and fought them during the 1790's and through his Presidency; and their undue influence on government. So, thus he's half right:

"The more government tries to control, the greater the disaster,"

....is only half true. The more bad governments try to control people, the greater the disaster. But health care is not a disaster, doesn't need to be a disaster. And if it becomes a disaster it's because privateers like Charles Koch have decided to aim the guns of their pirate ships on a basic public good.

"as shown by the current health-care debacle."

When the people work together we solve problems, mitigate issues and make things work better for all of us.

But what he disparages as "collectivism, are democratic republican values applied to our processes and institutions. If something is wrong feedback from the people can fix it. Democratic republican values involve improved processes, feedback and separation of powers. They are meant to mitigate dysfunction.

"Collectivists (those who stand for government control of the means of production and how people live their lives) promise heaven but deliver hell. For them, the promised end justifies the means."

Charles Koch is projectioning here. His movement promises lottery winnings for some and hell for "losers" and delivers hell for the majority. Democracy is not about taking "the means of production" from his greedy little hands, though we'd be better off if more people owned their own productive assets and had the power to acquire and own their own lives. I don't think he would fear "collectivism so much" that he fears democracy itself, if he understood and valued the country as much as he claims he does. On the contrary he seems to have imbibed the strange idea, which his Ayn Rand teacher (and the John Birch Society) taught him, that democracy is a form of collectivism. So he is definitely projectioning:

"Instead of encouraging free and open debate, collectivists strive to discredit and intimidate opponents. They engage in character assassination. (I should know, as the almost daily target of their attacks.)"

Charles Koch is under attack in the media because he and his brother are funding anti-democratic and corrupt organizations that are seeking to undermine our system. He may not get up and assault people personally, but Faux News, AEI, etc... have unleashed a constant barrage of personal attacks and false information about the ACA, about Democrats in general, and have done everything possible to defame, invent reasons to impeach, and block our current President. Thus his own folks are now the ones who engage in all the techniques and methods that he decries:

"This is the approach that Arthur Schopenhauer described in the 19th century, that Saul Alinsky famously advocated in the 20th, and that so many despots have infamously practiced. Such tactics are the antithesis of what is required for a free society—and a telltale sign that the collectivists do not have good answers."

So Charles Koch, without realizing it, has become that which he hates; A despot. We can pray for a "Road to Damascus moment" but this is a man who operates an empire where he's the despot. We Democratic Republicans do have ideas that work. We aren't collectivists we are pragmatic and believe in the common weal which is an English Concept that is older than Marx. Even as he claims he is an enlightened one:

Rather than try to understand my vision for a free society or accurately report the facts about Koch Industries, our critics would have you believe we're "un-American" and trying to "rig the system," that we're against "environmental protection" or eager to "end workplace safety standards." These falsehoods remind me of the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan's observation, "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts."

Indeed. Exactly my thought in listening to his apologia. His industries have a reputation for shipping tar sand oil, for piling up tailings and for polluting his environment. He may believe he's a paragon of environmentalism. But he funds folks dedicated to deregulation and to removing impediments to him making money. And his organizations are doing this down to the county level. Maybe he's like Marie Antoinette and doesn't know the details.

He continues: "Here are some facts about my philosophy and our company:"

Koch companies employ 60,000 Americans, who make many thousands of products that Americans want and need. According to government figures, our employees and the 143,000 additional American jobs they support generate nearly $11.7 billion in compensation and benefits. About one-third of our U.S.-based employees are union members.

So one third of his employees are union members? Yet he supports organizations fighting Unions and fights the unions in his own companies when they try to organize.

Koch employees have earned well over 700 awards for environmental, health and safety excellence since 2009, many of them from the Environmental Protection Agency and Occupational Safety and Health Administration. EPA officials have commended us for our "commitment to a cleaner environment" and called us "a model for other companies."

I'm sure they have. Revolving door anyone?

Our refineries have consistently ranked among the best in the nation for low per-barrel emissions. In 2012, our Total Case Incident Rate (an important safety measure) was 67% better than a Bureau of Labor Statistics average for peer industries. Even so, we have never rested on our laurels. We believe there is always room for innovation and improvement.

Nice.

Far from trying to rig the system, I have spent decades opposing cronyism and all political favors, including mandates, subsidies and protective tariffs—even when we benefit from them. I believe that cronyism is nothing more than welfare for the rich and powerful, and should be abolished.

Now isn't that ironic, considering he got his job because of his father.

Koch Industries was the only major producer in the ethanol industry to argue for the demise of the ethanol tax credit in 2011. That government handout (which cost taxpayers billions) needlessly drove up food and fuel prices as well as other costs for consumers—many of whom were poor or otherwise disadvantaged. Now the mandate needs to go, so that consumers and the marketplace are the ones who decide the future of ethanol.

Well we know which side of the Ethanol fight he's on.

Instead of fostering a system that enables people to help themselves, America is now saddled with a system that destroys value, raises costs, hinders innovation and relegates millions of citizens to a life of poverty, dependency and hopelessness. This is what happens when elected officials believe that people's lives are better run by politicians and regulators than by the people themselves. Those in power fail to see that more government means less liberty, and liberty is the essence of what it means to be American. Love of liberty is the American ideal.

Trouble is Charles, you may not realize it yourself. But you and your organizations are running people's lives. They are succeeding, especially at state and local level, in creating governments in your image, where businessmen run people's lives and in the name of "liberty" force women to have vaginal ultrasounds. You organized ALEC and it's anti-Abortion child organization, which write oppressive legislation and fight civil rights.

"If more businesses (and elected officials) were to embrace a vision of creating real value for people in a principled way, our nation would be far better off—not just today, but for generations to come. I'm dedicated to fighting for that vision. I'm convinced most Americans believe it's worth fighting for, too."

Please Charles, look in the mirror. The trouble with privateers is that they talk about how bad "government" is, but they are part of government, and they seem to want to be pirate captains who can loot with impunity, but never need to share the loot.

Source: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303978304579475860515021286

Sunday, April 6, 2014

The Real Benghazi Scandal

The only reason the attack on the USA embassy wasn't even more of a disaster is that it's defense was augmented by a nearby top secret black site which had more effective security. That is also why officials had to be discrete in talking about it. Congress cut funds to the State Department for security, but not to black sites, drone attacks or secret forces covertly invading friendly nation and foe alike. Our State Department workers risk their lives every day by actually talking to people.

The Republicans would rather shoot at them.

Source: https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn2/t1.0-9/10157183_10152051896411381_144721122_n.jpg

Written 4/16/2014. Added Image more recently

Saturday, April 5, 2014

Is Quid Pro Quo the only kind of corruption that Government can regulate.

Roberts in his MCCUTCHEON v. FEDERAL ELECTION COMM’N decision asserts:

“Moreover, while preventing corruption or its appearance is a legitimate objective, Congress may target only a specific type of corruption—“quid pro quo” corruption. As Buckley explained, Congress may permissibly seek to rein in “large contributions [that] are given to secure a political quid pro quo from current and potential office holders.” 424 U. S., at 26. In addition to “actual quid pro quo arrangements,” Congress may permissibly limit “the appearance of corruption stemming from public awareness of the opportunities for abuse inherent in a regime of large individual financial contributions” to particular candidates. Id., at 27; see also Citizens United, 558 U. S., at 359 (“When Buckley identified a sufficiently important governmental interest in preventing corruption or the appearance of corruption, that interest was limited to quid pro quo corruption”

The dissent focuses on the reality that permitting large scale contributions to candidates historically is tantamount to legalizing quid pro quo corruption. But quid pro quo historically hasn't been the only kind of corruption visible in government, nor the only kind that government has sought to regulate. In my previous post I talked about how the founders feared "undue influence" and "improper access" as well. If the problem were mere "general influence" the majority decision could be respected, but "undue influence" is a real problem and eventually amounts to bribery, extortion, and outright buying of elections through propaganda and lies. The first amendment protects the right to lie. Now it protects undue influence it seems. And Breyer calls them out on it:

“corruption does not include efforts to “garner ‘influence over or access to’ elected officials or political parties.” Ante, at 19 (quoting Citizens United, supra, at 359). Moreover, the Government’s efforts to prevent the “appearance of corruption” are “equally confined to the appearance of quid pro quo corruption,”

Breyer goes on to eviscerate the record of the courts evisceration of anti-bribery laws and evidentiary requirements. So based on the courts decisions even evidence demonstrating clear "quid pro quo" bribery will never be heard. Best to read the decision, especially the dissent and some of the articles on the subject explaining. It reading the majority arguments I'm simply astounded at how corrupt Roberts et all are. For them only quid pro quo corruption can be regulated -- and they make regulating that corruption impossible.

This is a follow up to my post earlier: http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-expected-corrupt-decision-by.html

Daily Kos says it better than I can:

[Roberts, Scalia, Alito, Kennedy & Thomas's] conclusion:: * rests upon its own, not a record-based, view of the facts.; * Its legal analysis is faulty: It misconstrues the nature of the competing constitutional interests at stake.; * It understates the importance of protecting the political integrity of our governmental institutions.; * It creates a loophole that will allow a single individual to contribute millions of dollars to a political party or to a candidate’s campaign. ...; http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/04/03/1289339/-Arm-yourself-read-Breyer-s-dissent-in-McCutcheon-v-FEC
Further Reading: http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/12-536_e1pf.pdf; http://www.opensecrets.org/overview/mccutcheon_about.php?mv
Breyers dissent explained here:: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/04/03/1289339/-Arm-yourself-read-Breyer-s-dissent-in-McCutcheon-v-FEC
Bill Moyers Comments:: http://billmoyers.com/2014/04/02/a-blistering-dissent-in-mccutcheon-conservatives-substituted-opinion-for-fact/; Bill Moyers makes case that court is corrupt.http://billmoyers.com/2014/04/14/cant-we-just-say-the-roberts-court-is-corrupt/
Related Posts by Me:: A Corrupt Court, Tuesday, June 26, 2012: http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2012/06/corrupt-court.html; A corrupt decision blind to corrupt access and influence October 8, 2013: http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2013/10/a-corrupt-decision-blind-to-corrupt.html; Corruption, Racketeering and the Supreme Court, Wednesday, October 16, 2013: http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2013/10/corruption-racketeering-and-supreme.html; Corrupt judges on the Supreme Court. October 23, 2013: http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2013/10/corruption-judges-on-supreme-court.html; Corrupt Court and Undue Influence and access according to Founders, Thursday, March 27, 2014: http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2014/03/corrupt-court-and-undue-influence-and.html; The Expected Corrupt Decision by a corrupt court, Saturday, April 5, 2014: http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-expected-corrupt-decision-by.html; Is Quid Pro Quo the only kind of corruption that Government can regulate. April 5, 2014: http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2014/04/is-quid-pro-quo-only-kind-of-corruption.html; Undue influence and Dependency Corruption or why the Supreme Court Decision was so corrupt, April 21st, 2014: http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2014/04/undue-influence-and-dependency.html

Fukushima Hirings

Saw an article on TEPCO (Japans' Nuclear Company/Oligopoly). And that inspired this poem:

We get the numbers of dead
by counting the job openings.
Truth is what they say it is,
and news is what they let out from under the lid.

Silly Bureaucrats,
Playing their monkey games,
Protecting their hierarchy,
while hiding their shame.

The Expected Corrupt Decision by a corrupt court

The McCutcheon case seems to reflect the fact that the Supreme Court is starting to wake up to the undue influence that their corrupt decision is having on the body politic and the deserved low esteem the public is starting to hold them in. It begins with a statement on their current stance on money as protected "free speech":

"The right to participate in democracy through political contributions is protected by the First Amendment, but that right is not absolute. Congress may regulate campaign contributions to protect against corruption or the appearance of corruption. See, e.g., Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S. 1, 26–27. It may not, however, regulate contributions simply to reduce the amount of money in politics, or to restrict the political participation of some in order to enhance the relative influence of others. See, e.g., Arizona Free Enterprise Club’s Freedom Club PAC v. Bennett, 564 U. S. ___, ___. "[12-536_e1pf.pdf]

This of course is corrupt language as the purpose of such laws is to prevent the private, separate advantage of corrupt influence and access using money, not to hold down folks who obviously are doing quite well.

In the Arizona case they had struck down a provision of law providing for public financing of elections. And Elena Kagan wrote a forceful dissent which the Brennan Center quotes in their article on the Arizona case:

“Except in a world gone topsy-turvy, additional campaign speech and electoral competition is not a First Amendment injury.” (9)

Unfortunately "topsy turvy" is diplomatic speak for brazenly corrupt decision making by the courts:

“This suit, in fact, may merit less attention than any challenge to a speech subsidy ever seen in this Court….Arizona, remember, offers to support any person running for state office. Petitioners here refused that assistance. So they are making a novel argument: that Arizona violated their First Amendment rights by disbursing funds to other speakers even though they could have received (but chose to spurn) the same financial assistance. Some people might call that chutzpah.” (12)

The chutzpah is calling the undue influence of rich folks buying elections "free speech" and denying others access to such influence.

“Robust campaigns leading to the election of representatives not beholden to the few, but accountable to the many. The people of Arizona might have expected a decent respect for those objectives. Today, they do not get it.” (32)

The power of money in politics, obviously extends to the Supreme Court.

But of course we aren't talking about the previous corrupt decisions but the McCutcheon case. Given their outrageous behavior prior to this case, one couldn't expect any other decision unless one of the judges had a "road to Damascus" moment. That didn't happen. But they seem to realize they established a corrupt privilege and called it a right.

So they haven't woken up. If the right to participate in politics by spending money is not absolute, then why is the Supreme court overturning legitimate laws aimed at regulating power and privileges ability to unduly influence policy and elections?

Topsy Turvy Money is not Free Speech

Money is not free speech. First even if one considered money "speech" it's not free. If it were free I'd love to see some. It is earned, it is taken, it is exchanged. But it is never free. "Free Money" is an oxymoron. That is why they talked about "corporate Speech" instead of money in the Citizens United, and have used such crazy twisted arguments like the notion that helping those whose speech is being suppressed is somehow infringing the speech of the privileged class of monied financiers buying elections. So they don't use the word "money = speech" even now. Money is not speech and privileging money is not a legitimate activity of the Supreme Court.

So they can obfuscate what they are really doing, which is privileging the time dishonored notion of "undue influence" by privileging wealthy oligarchs over everyone else. Which is what they did when they opened the door to this with the Citizens United Decision and they affirmed as their strategy when they ruled on the Arizona case and then outrageously overturned a nearly 100 year old Anti-Corporate Montana law without even presenting arguments Though Justice Breyer submitted a dissent.

"In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Court concluded that “independent expenditures, includ ing those made by corporations, do not give rise to corrup tion or the appearance of corruption.” 558 U. S. ___, ___ (2010) (slip op., at 42). I disagree with the Court’s holding for the reasons expressed in Justice Stevens’ dissent in that case. As Justice Stevens explained, “technically independent expenditures can be corrupting in much the same way as direct contributions.” Id., at ___ (slip op., at 67–68). Indeed, Justice Stevens recounted a “substantial body of evidence” suggesting that “[m]any corporate independent expenditures . . . had become essentially interchangeable with direct contributions in their capacity to generate quid pro quo arrangements.” Id., at ___ (slip op., at 64–65)."[http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/11-1179h9j3.pdf]"

So what this corrupt majority is doing is privileging undue influence, bribery, graft and all sorts of corruption and tyranny. As Breyer continues in the Montana case:

"even if I were to accept Citizens United, this Court’s legal conclusion should not bar the Montana Supreme Court’s finding, made on the record before it, that independent expenditures by corporations did in fact lead to corruption or the appearance of corruption in Montana. Given the history and political landscape in Montana, that court concluded that the State had a compelling interest in limiting independent expenditures by corporations."

100 years of evidence that the Supreme Court is lying about the link between money and corruption -- and the majority ignored that evidence.

Conclusion? Court is corrupt.

There really isn't much more to argue right now. Money is not speech, it is a tool, a source of power, and thus a source of influence. And when uncontrolled and in the hands of officers like the Supreme Court or wealthy privateers, it becomes a source of undue influence. The court ignored the entire principle of Undue Influence when it made it's decision so it could exert undue influence to corrupt the process, and so the justices involved can hear years of "Ka-ching" rewards from grateful oligarchs.

I've written on this twice now. On the Citizens United Case (http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2013/10/a-corrupt-decision-blind-to-corrupt.html) and last week I explained the Founders view of "undue influence".

The difference between a pirate and a privateer wasn't much. Both plied the seas, waged war based on private profits, and robbed people. But privateers had a charter legitimising their thefts. Pirates didn't. The Privateers didn't have to share the loot with the crew, and the pirates did. The Privateering spirit lives on.

Further Reading:: https://www.brennancenter.org/legal-work/arizona-free-enterprise-club-v-bennett; 12-536_e1pf.pdf; http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2014/04/mccutcheon_v_fec_campaign_finance_decision_justice_roberts_doesn_t_believe.html
And of course the Horse Rate neo-reporting:: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/04/02/winners-and-losers-from-the-mccutcheon-v-fec-ruling/
Related Posts by Me:: A Corrupt Court, Tuesday, June 26, 2012: http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2012/06/corrupt-court.html; A corrupt decision blind to corrupt access and influence October 8, 2013: http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2013/10/a-corrupt-decision-blind-to-corrupt.html; Corruption, Racketeering and the Supreme Court, Wednesday, October 16, 2013: http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2013/10/corruption-racketeering-and-supreme.html; Corrupt judges on the Supreme Court. October 23, 2013: http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2013/10/corruption-judges-on-supreme-court.html; Corrupt Court and Undue Influence and access according to Founders, Thursday, March 27, 2014: http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2014/03/corrupt-court-and-undue-influence-and.html; The Expected Corrupt Decision by a corrupt court, Saturday, April 5, 2014: http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-expected-corrupt-decision-by.html; Is Quid Pro Quo the only kind of corruption that Government can regulate. April 5, 2014: http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2014/04/is-quid-pro-quo-only-kind-of-corruption.html; Undue influence and Dependency Corruption or why the Supreme Court Decision was so corrupt, April 21st, 2014: http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2014/04/undue-influence-and-dependency.html

Thursday, March 27, 2014

Corrupt Court and Undue Influence and access according to Founders

Citizens United hinged on a Huge Error in Judgment

The problem with the Citizens United case, as I noted in my post from October last year, titled "A corrupt decision blind to corrupt access and influence" is that the most eggregious error of that decision wasn't the "corporate personhood" mistake. Corporate personhood is just a legal fiction that the courts have used to exempt companies from laws and responsibilities at State or County level. The huge error was their defenestreing of corruption/bribery laws through their failure to recognize "undue influence" and "improper access" as corruption despite 200 years of legal jurisprudence establishing these as the heart of corruption.

Independent Expenditures as Ingratiation, Access and Extortion

In that decision Kennedy had written:

"there is only scant evidence that independent expenditures even ingratiate. … Ingratiation and access, in any event, are not corruption."

But ingratiation and separate access provide opportunities for undue influence and undue influence is at the heart of Bribery definitions and corruption, and our more progressive leaders have known that since the Federalists talked of this while writing the Federalist papers. Undue influence is at the heart of the evils of plutocracy, bureaucracy, and all forms of tyranny (Locke: "Power...exercised...for private, separate advantage". Denying the potentially undue influence exerted by money expenditures and independent expenditures, simply expresses the corruption that the Supreme Court has suffered due to the undue influence of wealth and power expressed through pressure groups like Americans For Prosperity and the Federalist Societies patrons that has created such a corrupt supreme court.

Wikipedia defines it as:

"In jurisprudence, undue influence is an equitable doctrine that involves one person taking advantage of a position of power over another person."

Undue Influence includes Extortion and Slander

Our founders understood the dangers of "Undue Influence". Robert Yates wrote in the Federalist:

Image of page 657 "The Federalist and Other Constitutional Papers by Hamilton, Jay ..., Volume 1"

Partisanship Fueled by Separate Interest

Text of 657 to beginning of 658 follows and could almost be describing our own times:

"In respect to the first it may be necessary to observe that under the colonial government there existed violent parties now known by the name of whig or tory republicans and aristocrats Those who were in the employments of government or the ins [who] were for extending the prerogative of the crown while the outs were checks to it. Many of the leaders on both sides were under strong expectations that sooner or later that branch of colonial government called the king's council would be erected into a hereditary house of lords. The ins being nearest to the disposition of the offices of honor and profit and in the way of obtaining patents for vacant lands and being from time to time joined by other crown officers and dependents who flocked to and settled in this colony since the year 1763 had the means of making use of undue influence to retain their situations which made the outs at last despair of ever having a turn unless the elections were by ballot. [punctuation added]

Source:The Federalist and Other Constitutional Papers by Hamilton, Jay ..., Volume 1 edited by Erastus Howard Scott

Revolution fought to resist Undue Influence from $ Power

Undue Influence was part of the unfair power (and wealth) distribution that was the real reason for the first revolt that created the United States. Fear of foreign undue influence was one of the reasons we formed a General Federated Republic rather than remaining separate (and warring) colonies. And undue Influence has reared it's ugly head throughout our history in our country in much the same fashion. Only instead of hereditary land-lords with power by way of land titles, we now have hereditary Corporate-barons with power by way of Corporations. And we have those barons exerting undue influence on the Supreme Court as expressed in the Citizens United Decision and the efforts of the newspeak (bizaaroland) named Tea Parties. Where we resisted the undue influence of the East India company during our 1775-1889 revolt, it's modern analogues exert flagrant influence on us now.

Resisting the East India Company

In the Federalist Papers James Winthrop "Agrippa" referenced the power of the East India company in the following passage (on page 548)

"In most countries of Europe trade has been more confined by exclusive charters Exclusive companies are in trade pretty much like an aristocracy in government and produce nearly as bad effects An instance of it we have ourselves experienced Before the Revolution we carried on no direct trade to India. In most countries of Europe trade has been more confined by exclusive charters Exclusive companies are in trade pretty much like an aristocracy in government and produce nearly as bad effects An instance of it we have ourselves experienced Before the Revolution we carried on no direct trade to India " [page 548-549]

The USA was founded on a tension between legitimate business and privateering under charters. Our own chartered privateers were labeled as pirates by the British during our revolution [I visited a museum dedicated to that "notorious Pirate John Paul Jones" during my visit to Britain two years ago]. Pirates had an imperative to share the loot with crews while privateers and chartered trade companies ran their business as absolute dictatorships solely for the benefit of the owners. Our business people learned acute lessons from being considered second class businessmen. Many of them were officially branded as smugglers or even pirates. Part of the motive of the revolution was to protect their own trade from dumping by the East India Company which enjoyed tax free status on it's tea, while our businessmen had to buy the tea with a tax stamp from Britain, from the East India company!

Agrippa continues:

"In a republick we ought to guard as much as possible against the predominance of any particular interest It is the object of government to protect them all When commerce is left to take its own course the advantage of every class will be nearly equal But when exclusive privileges are given to any class it will operate to the weakening of some other class connected with them "

The founders sought to accomplish that by dividing the government into divisions and forcing them to both work together and to have to work out competing interests. They also were thinking of Business, but as we didn't have businesses like the East India Company in our country yet, they left working out that separation of power to later generations.

Indirect Bribery and Extortion = Undue Influence

So undue influence is connected to our founding principles, and the power of direct bribery and the indirect bribery labeled as "undue influence" was identified as a major ill way back during our founding days. This illustrates all the more graphically the mendacious and perverse faux principles of the "Federalist Movement" and it's corrupt avatars on the Supreme Court.

In this stage of our history the companies are more and more resembling the East India company and less and less resembling Paul Revere's Silver company or even Robert Morris' grand pirate fleet (our first navy). When folks argue for freedom from government they are really talking either about self-government, or the switch becomes rule by greedy corporations like the East India Company. The East India company so botched it's control of Bengal and other parts of SE Asia that the British Navy, Marines and Army had to come in to rescue them. Democracy is not only about individual rights it is also about functional societies where the right people are able to get offices and power for limited times as needed, and not to make their power hereditary and oppressive. That is why these discussions were found in the writings of the Federalists, Republicans and Anti-Federalists.