Lay in them thar beans and other supplies... Here it comes! Three articles this week!
Corky
The Burning Season, Part
One
By William Rivers Pitt and S. Loescher
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Tuesday, 9 July, 2002
A Pew Foundation poll found last week that some 62%
of Americans think George W. Bush should be doing more to help the economy.
They should be careful what they wish for. The folks currently ripping the
economy to shreds with lies and shady accounting spring from the same school
of corporatist business thinking that birthed Bush in the first place. One
should think twice before sending a wolf to tend the sheep.
Between the largest trade deficit in American history,
a dollar that has lost 10% of its value in the last few months, and an IMF
Director who has warned central banks worldwide that they might have to prop
up the American economy with some form of direct intervention before a global
economic meltdown ensues, it is worrisome to behold a man like Bush at the
helm of our economic future.
The problems Bush faces can be seen in twofold fashion
by analyzing the manner in which he himself has done business, and by analyzing
his priorities as displayed by his energy bill, which is currently moving
through a Congressional conference committee.
It's funny how all this seems to circle back to Enron.
The national news media seems to have lost Ken Lay and the Houston energy
corporation somewhere along the way, but the sorry state of American capitalism
owes a great deal to the back-room finagling of Kenny Boy - Bush's nickname
for the disgraced CEO - and his pack of sharks.
After all, it was Lay and his people who dumped $5.95
million into Congressional campaign contributions over the last few years
in order to bring about the broad-based deregulation of the energy business.
That deregulation has spawned the whirlwind anyone unfortunate enough to
have a 401K is reaping. 74% of that financial largesse went to Republicans,
most prominently among them Senator Phil Gramm of Enron's home state of Texas.
Gramm, whose wife Wendy was an influential Enron board
member, worked hammer and tong to make sure that regulatory control of the
energy industry was kept at a minimum. The philosophy behind this was simple:
let the market correct itself without any obtrusive strictures from some
federal bureaucracy. Gramm was able to achieve this thanks to the Republican
control of Congress during the latter half of the Clinton administration,
and thanks to the massive distraction provided by a Congressional trial dedicated
to the ways and means of lying about sex.
We are now in the midst of that correction - a pure
example of economic Darwinism if there ever was one - and 62% of Americans
don't like the way of it. The market is in the process of gutting itself,
cutting out the cancer of lies and financial shell-gaming brought about by
a total lack of outside control.
In the long run, this will be healthy. Like the "Rail
Panic" of the mid-19th century, when the railroad Robber Barons were finally
brought to heel by a series of oversight rules that prevented them from ripping
regular people off as they pleased, the endgame of this current scenario
should bring back a degree of legislated control to the careening madness
that deregulation brought forth.
It should bring about that reform, but it very well
may not. Reform, and the entire American economy, is in real danger of flying
right off a cliff because of the man whom a majority of Americans expect
will fix things. George W. Bush has no real interest in reform or repair.
He is cut from the same bolt of cloth that has wrapped our economy in a
smothering shroud, and he listens only to those who think as he does.
Because of this, the steps needed to repair things
may never be taken; for Bush to take them would point a damning finger at
his own shoddy way of doing business. It would also, along the way, destroy
a piece of legislation vital to the greedy expectations of the industry captains
who have funded Bush since he first entered politics.
It has been said that no one hides from history. Bush
is learning this to his woe. The sorry tale of Harken Energy Corporation,
one of the many businesses Bush helped run into the ground during his "youth"
as a forty-some-odd year old businessman, speaks to Bush's questionable
qualifications as a reformer. Back in 1990, Bush sold 212,140 shares of his
Harken stock and reaped a tidy profit of $850,000. Two months later, Harken
destroyed itself when it announced that it was carrying a larger debt than
it had previously disclosed. Raise your hand if you've heard of this kind
of thing happening recently.
The bright students who raised their hands and chirped,
"Enron executives did the same thing!" get a gold star.
Bush and his professional apologist Ari Fleischer
have twisted themselves in knots defending Bush's violation of federal laws.
You see, Bush failed to file the proper paperwork for his stock sale until
some eight months after the deadline. That is against the law. Had he filed
on time, the SEC would have investigated him for insider trading, and asked
what he knew when he sold his stock. As it happened, the SEC looked into
the deal in 1991, but dropped it like a hot potato. Extra credit is coming
for anyone who can name the man sitting as President over the SEC chairman
in 1991. That's right: George Herbert Walker Bush.
Just so we're clear: Bush was an executive of an energy
company that fell apart after it was forced to disclose the fact that it
had grossly inflated its profit reports. Bush was not financially harmed
by this, because he sold his stocks just before the hammer came down. He
broke federal laws by failing to report his sale of the stock, and was not
damaged by the SEC investigation that followed because it was halted soon
after it began. The SEC chairman at the time was an appointee of the first
President Bush.
If this has not grabbed the attention of the 62% of
Americans who want this fellow to fix the economy, the rest hopefully will.
The House of Representatives recently passed their
version of Bush's energy policy bill, which was written almost completely
by the same people who have run companies like Enron into the ground. Vice
President Dick Cheney, who captained the bill-writing process, refused to
disclose the specifics of that process, claiming that the sovereignty of
the Executive Branch was at stake. What information did dribble out after
massive pressure, however, confirmed the worst suspicions of activists and
investigators. Bush's energy bill, as it currently stands, is not meant to
serve the people. It is meant to serve large energy corporations and those
who contributed to his Presidential campaign. Often, the two are
indistinguishable.
The Energy bill as constituted by Cheney, Bush and
their friends in the energy industry is yet another massive tax giveaway.
The guts of the bill provide massive tax exemptions for these corporations.
As ever, the excuse for this is that these companies will benefit without
onerous financial burdens placed upon them by the tax structure of the federal
government. The fact is that, in these days of ballooning federal deficits,
the American people will bear the burden for the breaks these corporations
will get from this energy bill.
Just how much does the Cheney plan - adopted by the
House with only minor changes - give to industry, and how does that compare
to what industry invested in campaign gifts? The numbers show that the coal
industry was the biggest winner in terms of rate of return on their campaign
contributions investments. They gave $3.8 million, and receive more than
$5.8 billion - a whopping 153,700% rate of return on the investment. Other
winners include the oil and gas industry, which contributed $33 million and
receive nearly $19.5 billion in benefits - a 58,400% rate of return.. The
electric utility industry donated $18.6 million and received more than $5.8
billion in benefits - a return of investment rate of 31,400%.
We have before us a President who stands guilty of
the same corporate crimes he decries from his radio pulpit. This President,
despite all that has happened, still pushes for the ruinous House version
of the energy bill. The tax giveaways to his corporate energy friends will
further undermine the American economy, and open the entire nation up to
the same rolling blackouts that afflicted California, back when Enron was
in charge of their electricity. The Senate watered this bill down a bit,
but it sits now in committee waiting for the crafting of a compromise bill.
Come November 5, 2002, Americans will have the opportunity
via the midterm Congressional elections to thwart some of the more egregious
abuses of the Bush administration by electing Democrats to an unassailable
majority within the legislative branch. In 2004, we will be afforded the
chance to toss these robber barons out on the street, bag and baggage.
In the meantime, anyone who thinks these corporate
thieves should not be crafting energy policy for each and every American
should reach out to their representatives and tell them the score. The Senate's
version of this bill was only slightly less damaging to the public, and the
compromise being hammered out in committee will bear all the fingerprints
of Cheney's secret meetings with the very individuals who have so damaged
our economy and the stock market.
Bush and these people cannot be trusted to shepherd
this economy without stern guidance. Left to his own devices, Bush will lead
us further into this economic black hole. That is his nature. If he is allowed
to foist his bastardized energy bill upon us, our perilous economic balancing
act will tumble from the wire and be smashed in the street. It is time to
make some phone calls.
(Part Two - a detailed analysis of the development
of the energy bill and those wjho influenced it - is coming soon)