Crony/Cartel Capitalism

Rachel Maddow made a case (07/16/12) that Sheldon Adelson, the $25+ billionaire pouring over $100 million into Republican campaigns, has something very specific to buy: immunity from criminal prosecution for violating the US's Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. He made his money on a huge gambling enterprise in Macao by buying Chinese compliance, probably with million-dollar bribes.

The same week, the LIBOR scandal broke, revealing that global big banks have been fixing borrowing rates to their advantage: the market is not operating freely; a cartel was manipulating it. The Justice Department is reportedly building a case to prosecute the LIBOR collaboration; defendants might include regulators as well as bankers.

This same week, Romney has been caught claiming one thing--that he retired from Bain Capital VI in 1999, to run the winter Olympics in Utah--while official filings with the SEC said another: that he was sole owner, CEO, President and Chairman of the Board until 2002, when Bain was bankrupting companies and outsourcing workers. Actually, it was also doing that before 1999.

Pressure is building on Romney to release his income tax returns going back 20+ years, instead of the 2 he's so far revealed. It's not only Democrats, including Obama, who are pressuring him, but conservatives like George Will; he hopes the release might contain the damage.

We already know that banks found all sorts of creative ways to wrest billions from ordinary people--homeowners, investors, you name it: from shepherding credit-worthy minorities into high-cost subprime loans, talking others into deceptive balloon mortgages, to selling toxic bundles of mortgage securities and betting against their own products that had been designed to fail. In addition, HSBC just admitted to massive money laundering of Mexican drug billions.

The financial industry, authors of these frauds, was bailed out by US taxpayers. Now, Wall Street is funding Republicans over Democrats, in the election campaign, because Democrats passed the Dodd-Frank "reform," which though extremely watered down, does, at least, make an attempt to regulate the financial industry.

Other businessmen, represented by the Koch brothers, abhor regulation, and are willing to pay millions to avoid it. They want to be free to pollute, while society pays the price, and to run unsafe plants, again, while society pays the costs they incur on workers and environs. So, they push millions on super-pacs, hoping to bury Obama and Democrats in negative ad-hysteria. Their aim: to elect Romney and a Republican Congress, both of which will be expected to do their bidding.

This is the world that Citizens United has unleashed. It is not "free enterprise." It is not market capitalism. It is crony/cartel capitalism, dominated by a few extremely wealthy, who want laws to permit their corruption. It is a coordinated effort by the selfish class, like fifth century Roman Senators, to dominate the US, and then "the known world," just like the Roman Senators of old.

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