Forum Post: The Wages of Sin

Matt Taibbi and Yves Smith on the Follies of Big Banks and Government

Monday, 25 June 2012 09:31 By Bill Moyers, Moyers & Co. | Report

Rolling Stone editor Matt Taibbi and Yves Smith, creator of the finance and economics blog Naked Capitalism, join Bill to discuss the folly and corruption of both banks and government, and how that tag-team leaves deep wounds in our democracy. Taibbi's latest piece is "The Scam Wall Street Learned from the Mafia." Smith is the author of ECONned: How Unenlightened Self Interest Undermined Democracy and Corrupted Capitalism.

http://truth-out.org/news/item/9966-matt-taibbi-and-yves-smith-on-the-follies-of-big-banks-and-government

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The Human Cost of Corruption in the US Senate: Cutting Food Stamps While Giving the Sugar Lobby Billions

Monday, 25 June 2012 09:34 By Zaid Jilani, Republic Report | News Analysis

The everyday corruption of our government by Big Money has real consequences for Americans, many of whom are struggling to feed their families.

Take the farm bill that Congress spent time working on this week. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) introduced an amendment to restore $4.5 billion in funding for the food stamp program, which assists some of the poorest Americans, by cutting "guaranteed profit for crop insurance companies from 14 to 12 percent and by lowering payments for crop insurers from $1.3 billion to $825 million."

Her amendment, which would help poor Americans at the expense of corp insurers, was defeated along a 33-66 vote. The cuts to the food stamp will be going ahead in the name of deficit reduction.

But there was a separate effort in the Senate this week to save money that would've spared the poorest Americans and taken on corporate welfare instead.

Senators Jean Shaheen (D-NH), Pat Toomey (R-PA), and Richard Lugar (R-IN) introduced an amendment that would save up to $3.5 billion every single year by repealing and reforming various subsidies, tariffs, and other price supports that prop up the price of sugar on behalf of the Sugar Lobby.

The amendment was rejected along a 46-53 vote, with bipartisan coalitions on either side.

It's not a coincidence that the poor — who do not have well-heeled lobbyists at their disposal — lost while the powerful Sugar Lobby maintained its government favors. As The Washington Examiner's Tim Carney explained last week, Big Sugar has all sorts of deep connections to Washington:

But the lobby for the sugar program is strong. Most famously, the Fanjul family in Florida, owner of Florida Crystals, are deeply embedded in Washington politics. Over the last three elections, the Fanjuls have given more than $1.8 million to federal candidates and political action committees, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics.

Alfie Fanjul is a longtime Democratic fundraiser (Bill Clinton once interrupted a liaison with Monica Lewinsky to take a call from Alfie). His brother Pepe is a Republican booster. In January, Pepe and his wife hosted a $2,500-a-head Palm Beach fundraiser for Mitt Romney.

"The U.S. sugar program is essentially a transfer of wealth from consumers, including the poorest Americans, to a handful of wealthy sugar producers," said Toomey regretfully in a statement after his amendment was rejected. Unfortunately, this is the reality in America where Big Money runs the legislative process.

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/9967-the-human-cost-of-corruption-in-the-us-senate-cutting-food-stamps-while-giving-the-sugar-lobby-billions

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Monsanto Trumps Food Safety and Democracy (Again)

Monday, 25 June 2012 09:05 By Charlotte Silver, Inter Press Service | Report

San Francisco - As the 2012 Farm Bill continues to take shape in the halls of the United States Congress, the immense influence of corporate interests is on display.

http://truth-out.org/news/item/9961-monsanto-trumps-food-safety-and-democracy-again

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There Is an Alternative to Capitalism: Spanish City Mondragon Shows the Way

Monday, 25 June 2012 09:46 By Richard D Wolff, The Guardian UK | Op-Ed

There is no alternative ("Tina") to capitalism?

Really? We are to believe, with Margaret Thatcher, that an economic system with endlessly repeated cycles, costly bailouts for financiers and now austerity for most people is the best human beings can do? Capitalism's recurring tendencies toward extreme and deepening inequalities of income, wealth, and political and cultural power require resignation and acceptance – because there is no alternative?

I understand why such a system's leaders would like us to believe in Tina. But why would others?

Of course, alternatives exist; they always do. Every society chooses – consciously or not, democratically or not – among alternative ways to organize the production and distribution of the goods and services that make individual and social life possible.

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/9968-there-is-an-alternative-to-capitalism-spanish-city-mondragon-shows-the-way