So "special interests" screwed us over once again...

[spindoctor]

In today's NYT, Paul Krugman explains yet again how last years new Medicare bill benefits no one but the drug cartels who call themselves the pharmaceutical industry in this country.

<snip>
If all this sounds like a story of a corrupt deal created by a corrupt system, it is. And it was a very expensive deal indeed. According to the Medicare trustees, the fiscal gap over the next 75 years created by the 2003 law - not the financing gap for Medicare as a whole, just the additional gap created by legislation passed 18 months ago - will be $8.7 trillion.
</snip>

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/06/opinion/06krugman.html?hp&oref=login
(registration required)

Also in the news today, President Bush and the other capos have still not ponied up the cost for fixing the 200 Florida election through "special interest" groups.

<snip>
As a corporation, Greenberg’s unpaid tab represents a massive in-kind campaign contribution, far larger than anything that went unreported by DeLay. But it appears to be legal: corporations are allowed to donate any amount to the nebulous type of committee employed during the recount. It would, however, violate the committee's self-imposed $5,000 contribution limit from individual donors.
</snip>

http://rawstory.com/exclusives/byrne/abramoff_florida_recount_bush_505.htm

Special Interest has become an industry of its own, and airs TV spots to specially promote the interest of Special Interest. They are (so claim the commercials) OUR channel to the Government.

...uhhhyah...

There was a word for special interest long ago when it was even more fashionable to pay government officials for their favors: CORRUPTION.
In other banana republics they still call it that today. Intellectuals might refer to it as quid pro quo, but no matter what you call it, it is industry screwing over the masses. Again and again and again.

If I had to name ONE thing that is wrong with this country, it is special interest. The only thing it channels to the government is money and it INTERFERES with DEMOCRACY.
The same priceless democracy that we are supposedly exporting all over the world today is not priceless at all. It is just overpriced to keep it out of reach from the common people. For the drug cartels, the arms smugglers, the polluters and the consiglieris it is the perfect vehicle to launder money to the likes of DeLay, Frist, Clinton and Kerry in return for their carefully distributed approval votes.

Special Interest is the growing cancer in our system and before long it will be the end of democracy all together. We simply cannot allow it to grow and expect to make the desperately needed changes in health care, education and social security regardless of who will be elected in 2008.

[izzie]

1. Did the Fed. Papers go into this?

Been years since I read those things but I swear it was a big worry with the Founding Fathers.That is, greed would be one of the reasons if we could not make the gov. work.

[spindoctor]

2. Thomas Jefferson's famous quote

During the debate over the recharter of the bank bill in 1809:

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies . . . If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around . . . will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered . . . The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs."

[radfringe]

3. special interests carry Captial W cards

who's in your pocket?

[annabanana]

4. Very good... "Not Priceless........Overpriced!"

What I want to know is..
"WERE THE HELL IS MY SMALL PRINT?!?!?!"

Is there a lawyer in the house that could write up some boilerplate for me? You know, along the lines of "if this product falls apart before I finish paying for it, I can deduct the full purchase price from my credit card bill" or, "sending me this item I've ordered online implies that the vender has read and approved the following conditions of the sale: (followed by two pages of teeny print that flashes before the sellers eyes....that finishes up with "conditions are subject to change without notice")

C'mon.. write ME up something!!
:bounce:

[spindoctor]

5. On that note

I started billing corporations for wasted time several years ago.
For example, if I spend an hour on and off the phone with my cell phone company over mysterious charges that suddenly appear, I present them with a nice invoice for my services.

So far it hasn't made me any money, but it does grab their attention :)