SMALL FAVORS
Ivins, Molly
SMALL FAVORS Molly Ivins Rip-offs and Hissy Fits Ah, the Presidential campaign is off to a roaring start. So far the vital issues of third-trimester abortions, gay marriage, and teen smoking have...
...I realize these ideas will send the Republicans into a hissy fit and strike others as not radical enough, but we have to start by fixing what we can clearly see is wrong...
...The justification for interfering with "the magic of the marketplace" is 1929...
...Since we've already jacked around with CEO compensation—the unsuccessful and much-loopholed law that was supposed to prevent the taxpayers from subsidizing CEO compensation of over $1 million a year—there is precedent for stepping in again...
...We also need a labor party in this country...
...Once you provide A) jobs, B) job training, C) child care, D) health insurance, and E) transportation, welfare will practically disappear...
...Truly, there is this elephant in the national living room and we are all tiptoeing around, pretending it's not there...
...So publicly financed campaigns are still my Numero Uno...
...Now they need a level playing field, to coin a phrase...
...These are the issues that are ripping America apart, as we all know...
...And the rest of us are getting ripped off by the maniacally growing fees banks charge for everything from ATMs to talking to human tellers...
...Some 80 percent of American workers have flat or falling wages, while the richest 1 percent have amassed more wealth than the bottom ninety...
...We might also want to take a look at outlawing derivatives trading entirely...
...The Issue That Dare Not Speak Its Name, to wit, the astonishing and continuing redistribution of wealth in this country, has disappeared from the campaign radar...
...Labor as an institution has been through an internal reformation that.has-left it lean, clean, and ready to fight...
...I suspect the reason the pols are ignoring the elephant is that none of them has any idea what to do about it...
...Two-o is some serious tinkering with the economic system...
...And whatthehell, it beats the Pledge of Allegiance as an issue...
...As Michael Hudson points out in his new book, Merchants of Misery: How Corporate America Profits from Poverty, the big banks and financial services companies are ripping off the poor to the tune of $200 billion to $300 billion a year...
...And the minute you start thinking about what to do about it, you realize that all solutions run counter to the perceived rightward tilt of the country...
...But in a capitalist system, the key to getting ahead is access to capital...
...I'm for ending welfare as we know it: Any idiot could improve on the current welfare system—all it requires is more money...
...Government of corporate special interests, by corporate special interests, and for corporate special interests has clearly helped get us into this pickle, and it's not going to help us get out...
...There is mounting evidence that CEOs increasingly identify the success of their corporations with stock-market performance and stock-market performance only...
...If I may remount my favorite hobbyhorse for a moment, the first thing to do is change campaign financing...
...Viola, as we say in East Texas...
...This is nuts...
...Through the Reagan and Bush years, the deck was increasingly stacked against unions...
...Come back, Pat Buchanan, we need you...
...So far the vital issues of third-trimester abortions, gay marriage, and teen smoking have been at the fore...
...This trend neatly parallels the shift in CEO compensation from straight salaries to stock options...
...But betting on whether the stock market itself will go up or down, rather than on whether a given company will make money, is a damn fool thing to allow...
...Through chains of pawnshops, check-cashing stores, and No Credit/No Problem financing companies, poor folks are being legally charged anywhere from 30 to 300 percent interest on small loans...
...And here is where we need a (government-prompted) movement to create community banks, credit unions, and branch banks in low-income areas...
...Because of the many laws and regulations (burdensome, burdensome, you can't use the word "regulation" without putting "burdensome" next to it in Newt's America) that Molly Ivins, a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, is now a commentator on 60 Minutes...
...In other words, CEOs now have serious financial incentive to ignore both their workers and their communities...
...have governed the stock market since the 1930s, ours is fairly stable and relatively honest...
Vol. 60 • July 1996 • No. 7
