Popular Scams of
the Rich and Famous
By Richard Backus
21/09/08 "ICH"
--- There are an ever-increasing number of linkages between
politicians, big businesses, and rich individuals designed to
promote their joint prosperity at the expense of the general
public. Money flows in both directions between these “players”
under various “pay for play” schemes. Because they unfairly
absorb federal tax revenue or deprive the general public of
legitimately earned benefits, I refer to these schemes as
“scams'. Most are technically “legal' being based upon law or
statute, or founded upon government policy and practice, but
have been set up in ways designed to benefit favored
individuals. In most cases, these practices are promoted by
Republican politicians serving their primary clients, rich
individuals and “big business”. Hopefully, in the coming
elections, legislators will be chosen which will have the
courage to rectify these abuses. The following are just a few of
the more popular scams.
Social laws, uncertain as to constitutionality, have been passed
to control the general populace, and are generally ignored by
those creating them, as evident in many recent court cases.
Prostitutes do quite a brisk business during political party
conventions, and a “madam” recently interviewed claimed that the
"family values" group, the Republicans, are the the best
customers. But all this has been pretty well hidden from public
awareness by the establishment media, and grudgingly and
belatedly disclosed, if at all, after previously promulgated on
blogger sites. This situation was not reported during the 2004
conventions by a single major U.S. media, and I read about it
only in foreign news sources, the Guardian and Reuters. So much
for the fearless American press! But news media in the U.S .
practice self-censorship because they are fully aware of what
they can and cannot report. Anything critical of the rich and
famous is forbidden.
There has been no effort to contain medical expenses that have
caused a great many of the financial problems currently plaguing
the U.S. The AMA and ADA have so well financed the campaigns of
our legislators that we are now facing multiple financial crises
substantially directly cause by health care costs. The 2007
federal government deficit of approximately $180 billion would
have become a $300 billion surplus simply with a reform of this
sector. Americans pay, on average, nearly $7,000 per person for
medical costs, whereas citizens in the next-highest-cost
developed pay around $3,200 per person. Bringing the U.S. health
costs in line with those of the rest of the western world would
save U.S. citizens directly $720 billion and the federal
government $480 billion more. The U.S. physician's claim is that
costs are so high because we get the best health care in the
world. This is a real con job. The World Health Organization
ranks the U.S. 26th in quality of health care of the advanced
countries. The major problem is that a monopoly has been created
by limiting the number of teaching hospitals as well as the
number of students who are entitled to enroll. The selection
process for medical school positions involves the usual custom
of picking predominantly children of those politically
connected. The "special" qualifier for positions in the few
medical schools places offered, that determines appointment more
often than demonstrated academic excellence, is participation in
extra-curricular activities indicating "leadership" abilities.
This is a standard trick for all appointments in this vast
conspiracy, made to benefit unqualified candidates supported by
political elites. It avoids the serious business of determining
the truly deserving (who are frequently passed over because they
are considered “nerds” (because they study so much)) and for
admission committees to give preference to candidates whose
academic performance is not quite up to par. George W. qualified
as a possible “leader” because he was a cheerleader at Andover,
and others are selected because of their participation in
college political activities. When training people for highly
technical and critical jobs (e.g., physicians), the last thing
the candidate should be doing is playing political tricks or
scheming for political office. They should be studying.
The whole system of "globalization" is simply a way to exploit
workers worldwide thereby maximizing the profits of essentially
western-owned multinationals. The results are now coming in, as
demonstrated by the current disinflation in the western
countries. By allowing multinationals special tax breaks and
accounting practices the U.S. government has encouraged the
transfer of almost all high wage U.S. jobs overseas to low
wage (exploited) workers. By simply calling these lost jobs "low
skilled" they have convinced U.S. workers that they really
deserve less for their labor, which in many cases were the most
stressful and demanding in the country, Soon middle level
professional jobs will be moved overseas as well, and similarly
described, no doubt, as "low skilled". This includes engineering
and product design, paralegal and brokerage back office jobs,
and accounting and auditing jobs as well. Even radiologists will
miraculously end up as "low tech" workers.
Still extant farm subsidies unfortunately not only violate those
“economically sacrosanct” principles of globalization but result
in higher prices for the American consumer as well as increased
cost to the American taxpayer. As a bonus, they frequently
produce serious economic consequences for other "global"
players, especially for our South American "partners" (and incur
their resentment).
The U.S. government has made no effort whatsoever to assist in
providing support for displaced U.S. workers by demanding
reciprocity of employment opportunity with those countries whose
citizens are flooding the U.S. labor market. While surveying
foreign papers in Europe and Australia/New Zealand for jobs in
the IT business, I found loads of ads promising unlimited amount
of IT opportunities in the U.S. But ads for IT jobs in these
same countries all ended with statements that these local jobs
are reserved for their own citizens. Recently the U.S.
government passed an amendment to its visa rules allowing other
country's workers to enter the U.S. for 6 months without a prior
job offer. Most other western countries did the same I believe,
offering job opportunities for U.S. workers. But there was a
limit to the ages of these workers, 27 years I believe,
suspiciously approximating the average age of the children of
our current members of Congress. These job opportunities can not
possibly benefit those most damaged by U.S. outsourcing
policies, those who had irreplaceable (at their ages)
experience, without finances to retrain, and facing huge and
continuing family bills in the U.S. They still have no realistic
possibilities to work overseas even though the great god
“globalization” based its legitimacy on the free movement of
capital and labor. What a joke!
The entire USAID program has become an excellent way to feed
money to political supporters. This scam involves granting
taxpayers money as USAID “aid money” to friendly foreign
governments with "tied" aid (agreements to purchase in most
cases U.S.-made products and services). The so-called "aid"
money never reaches the country supposedly receiving it. The
"receiving" country gets products and "advice" from U.S.
corporations and individuals selected from the U.S. governments
"preferred list" of suppliers. The organizations providing these
services and products are basically weapons suppliers and
"international" accounting and law firms providing "advice" to
the recipient country's government. These “select” suppliers and
“advisers” are, of course, those companies and individuals who
are the major suppliers of campaign finance funds. The recipient
country gets weapons systems and armaments used by the local
military to control discontented locals (and also expected to
support U.S. regional political goals). The result is a lot of
money is transferred to American multinationals and private
companies located in the U.S. with the bill payed out of
taxpayers funds. This is an excellent way to create campaign
finance funds with the bill paid by U.S. taxpayers.
Flight of capital from the U.S., (unrestrained by laws regularly
established by other more prudent governments) is increasing the
risk of a banking default in the U.S. and a drastic drop in the
dollar. It is accelerating at the same time that foreigners
dollar holders (private and public) are thinking twice about
keeping their funds here because the U.S. government has shown
no interest or willingness to restrain this process.
The much ballyhooed one-man, one-vote election under a democracy
simply does not exist. With the caucus system still being
practiced in many states, the candidates the public finally gets
to vote for (essentially one of 2 choices) have been chosen by
the powers-that-be within each state, and under these
conditions, the private citizen's vote is practically
meaningless.
Most of the efforts of the U.S. government to contain Communism
have involved the setting up of American-friendly foreign
governments who were willing to turn a blind eye to exploitation
of their country's resources and populace by U.S. corporations.
To make matters worse, the U.S. Government, which has
established these regimes, insist on calling the resulting
U.S.-friendly governments (oligarchies of the rich at best) as
"democracies" when,in reality, the government which it replaced
was far more democratic than the one established by the U.S.
government. This was all done under the pretext of constraining
Communism, but was also a handy scheme for U.S. businesses to
gain possession or control of the few assets these poor
countries possessed and a new supply of exploitable local
workers. Now that Communism is no longer a realistic treat there
is no longer any pretext for doing this. No governments should
be overthrown by actions of the U.S. government regardless of
its having a political or economic system inimical to presumed
western interests, and certainly no one should be going around
bragging about setting up a "democracy" when the opposite
occurred.
Bidding on all levels of government contracts is also riddled
with ways to allow the contract manager to give the contract to
a friend. If the manager's friend is not the low bidder, the
manager can simply reopen the bidding on any number of pretexts
and advise his friend what he needs to bid to get the contract.
Bids can be thrown out as "non-serious" bids without notice, on
the basis that the bidder is incapable of performing at that
price. This device is used when the winning bid is so low that
even the manager's friend can't compete even knowing the
prospective winning bid price. This is because he is really a
'prime contractor', won't be doing the work, and needs extra
funds to cover his “cut” and to cover possible gratuities for
the contract manager. The government has even set up a separate
agency, at taxpayer expense, to "prove" this type of fraud can
not occur. All the public exposure over the years of these
practices puts the lie to the honesty of this organization.
The FED's constant claim of incipient inflation over the last 18
years (when none has ever materialized) has finally resulted in
our current economic crises. The latest FD-sponsored recession
might well be the final straw that breaks the back of U.S.
consumers. There is a serious "moral hazard" involved in
improper disclosures of these continuing, unpredictable, and
totally uncalled- for adjustments in interest rates as well.
The federal government has been playing footsie with fascism for
quite a long time, supported only by the inability of the
general public to recognize it. Ecclesiastic appointments,
corporate management, charity, "brain trust" ,foundations,
university appointments, and even scholarship awards are
controlled by political elites, with the consequent assurances
that these appointees will play ball with the politicians and
their “sponsors”. The Pols now essentially control everything
under the direction of the rich and famous.
The “justness” of the U.S. legal system can be compromised by
anyone with unlimited funds. The Constitution certainly would
not have countenanced the use of multiple lawyer (with political
connections) for any one case, for jury selection advisors, and
the abusive use (and misuse) of expert witnesses.
Foundations, “brain trusts”, charities, and other non-profits
are the most dangerous potential source of political
influence-buying of all these “scamers”. Foundations, formed by
individuals to avoid inheritance taxes, can provide jobs, grant
contracts, and purchase goods and services from a large number
of politically-sponsored individuals and companies. They pay no
taxes even when they accumulate funds, which they call
“surplus”. These surpluses can be invested with the proceeds not
subject to taxes. Their employees are well compensated and live
quite luxuriously while on 'company business'. Contract awards
and grants tend be generous, and the foundations can purchase
supplies and services without oversight. Most recipients of this
largess are politically-connected and are expected to promote
political goals and to funnel funds to political campaigns.
There are literally hundreds of thousands of other varieties of
non-profits,categorized as NGOs, which conduct their businesses
in essentially the same way. They are set up to perform certain
socially-beneficial services, but after all the above-mentioned
expenses, only a small percentage of their income are used in
this way. Typically, 30 percent of their income (tax deductible
write offs from corporations and individuals, and government
giveaways) are spent on salary and payroll taxes to top
employees and their generous “business expenses” (5-star hotel
accommodations, chic restaurant and 1st class air travel costs).
The remaining 70 percent can be used for “public relation fees”
(to supporters) and some is even spent on legitimate promotion
programs. What is left, perhaps 50 percent, can, by the “50
percent rule” be passed on to another tax-exempt having similar
expenses, with the result that the claimed public-service, used
to obtain tax-exempt status, can end up with practically
nothing. Certain charities are particularly offensive
perpetrators of this same scheme, disbursing for political
purposes the monies donated for the most-needy individuals of
all, the poor and defenseless, mostly children. Principles of
those organizations practicing this blatant “welfare to the
rich” scheme should be, but seldom are, prosecuted.
All in all, most of the American populace's problems derive from
a lack of understanding of how their job opportunities and
financial success are being jeopardized by these practices. A
great deal of the blame for these scam's success can be
attributed to the establishment media's self-censorship on these
important issues, with a consequent inability of the public to
correctly determine what is going on. Thankfully, there is now a
self-appointed group who are now providing the news so
instrumental in allowing the public to make necessary political
decisions. They are called "blog sites" and are America's
version of the old soviet "samizdat". Hopefully the government
can be prevented from meddling with them.
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