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David goes on to list other abuses the drug industry is allowed to get away with by our government that should be working for us but isn't. I'll mention just one more which is an attempt by the industry to prevent consumers from buying their drugs from other countries like Canada on the false pretext they're unsafe - even though they're the same drugs. So much for honesty and fairness. Once again David shows us how we can fight back and win.Chapter 8: Energy - Try to Think of Another Industry with Closer Ties to Those Now in the Administration
The Bush administration is run by a cadre of high level officials formerly involved with energy companies before they came to government including the president and vice-president. Now try to think of another industry that will be better treated by those in government than this one. There is none, although there are lots of others who get their full share and aren't complaining.
David's book didn't have some industry figures I now have to show how good business really is in a time of sky-high oil prices. I'll do it by citing the operating results of the oil giant I most like to pick on because they make it so easy for me to do it - Exxon-Mobil. In 2005, this company showed it's currently the largest corporation in the world. In its annual report to shareholders and Wall Street investors, it reported the highest annual profit ever earned by a publicly traded company. It was a breathtaking $36 billion on sales revenue of $371 billion. But that's not the end of the story. The good times just keep rolling for this oil giant as it recently reported its operating results for its 2006 first quarter, and they're better than ever: profits were up 7% from last year to 8.4 billion (their highest ever for a first quarter) and sales were up as well by 8.4% to $89 billion. Now to put all that in perspective, based on its 2005 sales volume, Exxon-Mobil is so large that if this company were a country it would rank in size ahead of nearly 75% of all countries in the world. They can thank the Bush administration for a lot of their success. Guess who their top executives will be voting for in November and the top officials of the other energy giants as well.
High energy prices (and specifically oil prices) are also the result of at least two other factors which David discusses. One is the effect on competition by massive consolidation in the industry, especially among refiners. He noted the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) approved 413 mergers during the Clinton years and another 520 in the first three years of the Bush administration. Fewer companies mean less competition, and that's led to higher prices. David also reported that Consumers Union in 2004 found that higher prices were mostly from higher charges at refineries. And those increases were the result of lax federal regulation which allowed refiners to create artificial bottlenecks in supply driving up the cost of gasoline at the pump. There's a nasty word for this never used. It's called price fixing, and our government watchdogs are allowing it with their winks and nods to their oil giant friends. The consuming public is forced to pay the price and is lied to by the government and industry trying to justify it.
To top it all off, it's well known, especially by those who try to deceive us, that energy supplies are finite. With that in mind, you'd think the government would be encouraging or even mandating the industry to make a determined effort to find alternative sources to replace our dwindling resources that won't last forever. And you'd also think laws would be passed requiring conversation especially by raising fuel efficiency standards for vehicles and enacting other measures to lower energy consumption. But if you thought that, you'd be wrong. Although the need is urgent, doing these sensible things are bad for business. And as we see repeated industry after industry, our government will even pursue reckless policies to support their corporate friends and funders, and in the process ignore the needs of the public. Nothing will ever change until we demand it, and that's what David is trying to convince us to do.
Chapter 9: Unions - They Once Were Strong and Won Great Benefits for Their Members - No Longer
David observes, and I strongly concur, that there's no clearer expression of corporate America's hostile takeover of government than how elected officials treat ordinary working people. Above all, that means their right to organize and be represented by strong unions that will fight for their rights. Large corporations especially hate unions and always have. But a golden age of worker rights emerged during The Great Depression in the 1930s when economic conditions became so dire the Roosevelt administration and enlightened business leaders knew they had to make big enough concessions, like it or not, to avert a possible worker's revolution similar to what happened in Russia in 1917. The key legislation enacted for workers was the passage of the Wagner Act that established the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) that guaranteed labor the right to bargain collectively on equal terms with management.
Things began to change in the post WW II era beginning with the 1947 passage of the Taft-Hartley Act that was the first major shot across the bow by corporate America to curb the power of organized labor. But things really picked up steam adversely during the Reagan years when that administration showed its contempt for working people. It began in 1981 with the firing of 11,000 striking air traffic controllers, jailing its PATCO leaders, fining the union leaders millions of dollars and finally "busting" the union. The Reagan administration also used federal tax dollars to finance strike-breaking, worked to reduce worker health and safety protections and campaigned to change federal statutes guaranteeing worker rights to organize and bargain collectively.
From Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush, things have gotten progressively worse as the social contract the government once had with the people has been systematically dismantled. It's been done program by program, year after year with the ultimate goal of the Bush administration and all politicians beholden to business to make all ordinary working people "self-sufficient" with little or no safety net for protection and the power of union representation effectively neutered. We see the result in how union membership has declined through the years. Whereas in 1958 about one third of the work force belonged to unions, today it's under 13%. That shameful figure is the lowest in the industrialized world to the detriment of all ordinary working people here.
Corporate America in league with government has shamelessly campaigned against unions in an effort to demonize them to discourage workers from understanding how membership benefits them. The rhetoric used is hostile, deceitful and contrary to the facts which David lists: average union workers earn about one-third more in total compensation than nonunion members; 89% of union members have employer-paid health care benefits compared to 67% of nonunion members; employers pay a greater share of union member health care premiums than they do for nonunion members; over two-thirds of union members have short-term disability insurance compared to about one-third of nonunion workers; and, union members receive about 26% more vacation time and 14% more total paid leave (vacations and holidays) than nonunion members. Also, strong unions benefit nonunion workers according to the nonpartisan Economic Policy Institute. They reported union influence resulted in an 8.8% wage increase for the average nonunion high school graduate. And another key fact came out of the influential Council on Foreign Relations. They reported that the decline in union membership "is correlated with the early and sharp widening of the US wage gap" between the well-off and ordinary working people.
Again David goes on to list and debunk the many myths and lies government and business try to use to attack and destroy organized labor. Without it or in weakened form, big corporations especially can exploit their work force, hold down wages and benefits and increase their profits. So far their plan is working like a charm as noted earlier in the section under wages. Ordinary working people today earn less than 30 years ago when adjusted for inflation, and the gap between rich and poor has widened to obscene levels and it's getting worse. It's unlikely this trend will be reversed unless a way is found to revive the union movement so that working people again have a strong voice fighting for their rights. Again, David offers solid solutions.
Chapter Ten: Legal Rights - This Means the Right of Ordinary People to Have Their Day in Court and Be Treated Fairly Because the Law Assures It - It's Called the Right of "Due Process" Guaranteed Under the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution
Fair treatment under the law in a democratic society serving us all is the way things should be, but they're not, Fourteenth Amendment notwithstanding. That's because corporate America in collusion with their government benefactors have stacked the legal deck to prevent it. So instead of equity and justice we have "tort reform." That's code language meaning limiting the legal rights of ordinary individuals including their ability to file lawsuits against corrupt companies and be able to get fair redress for the harm caused them.
David shows how government has pandered to corporate wishes. In 1995, Congress passed a bill limiting shareholders' rights to sue company officials and get proper restitution when they cooked the books or violated the law in other ways. Then in 2005, Congress enacted legislation limiting our right to file class-action lawsuits. And the same thing is happening at the state level, so that power and influence is stripping ordinary people of their legal right of protection against corporate abuse that seems to become greater as corporations grow larger and get cozier with elected officials. The 2005 federal legislation requires most class-action suits to be filed only in federal courts which are more heavily stacked with business-friendly justices than the state ones. Also, many state laws are tougher and federal courts are so overburdened many cases never get heard and those that do must wait far longer to be placed on the court docket. When justice is delayed under this kind of an unfair system, it's denied.
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