The Business Roundtable: The Most Powerful Corporate Business Club Americans Have Never Heard of

[marmar]

via AlterNet:


Amped Status / By David DeGraw

The Business Roundtable: The Most Powerful Corporate Business Club Most Americans Have Never Heard of
The Business Roundtable, an organization representing Fortune 500 CEOs, is at the heart of the Economic Elite's power center.

March 12, 2010 |


Editor's Note: The following is Part III of David DeGraw's report, "The Economic Elite vs. People of the USA." AlterNet previously ran Part I and Part II.

DeGraw writes in the introduction to his report:

"It has now become evident to a critical mass that the Republican and Democratic parties, along with all three branches of our government, have been bought off by a well-organized Economic Elite who are tactically destroying our way of life. The harsh truth is that 99% of the US population no longer has political representation. The US economy, government and tax system is now blatantly rigged against us.Current statistical societal indicators clearly demonstrate that a strategic attack has been launched and an analysis of current governmental policies prove that conditions for 99% of Americans will continue to deteriorate. The Economic Elite have engineered a financial coup and have brought war to our doorstep. . . and make no mistake, they have launched a war to eliminate the US middle class."

***

Part III: Exposing Our Enemy: Meet the Economic Elite

I don’t view the Economic Elite as a small group of men who meet in secrecy to control the world. They do feature elements of conspiracy and are clearly composed of secretive organizations like the Bilderberg Group -- this is not a conspiracy theory, this is a conspiracy fact - but as a whole the Economic Elite are primarily united by ideology. They’re made up of thousands of individuals who subscribe to an ideology of exploitation and the belief that wealth and resources need to be concentrated into the fewest hands possible (theirs), at the expense of the many.

That being said, there are some definite lead players in this group and it is important that we are not too vague and expose the individuals who publicly lead them. Focusing on the fundamental structure of the US economy, we have people like Hank Paulson, Tim Geithner, Ben Bernanke, Robert Rubin, Larry Summers, Alan Greenspan, Lloyd Blankfein, Jamie Dimon, John Mack, Vikram Pandit,and John Thain.

In total, the Economic Elite are made up of about 0.5% of the US population. At the center of this group is the Business Roundtable, an organization representing Fortune 500 CEOs that is also interlocked with several lead elite organizations. Most Americans have never heard of the Business Roundtable. However, in my analysis, it is the most influential and powerful Economic Elite organization. ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/economy/145996/the_business_roundtable%3A_the_most_powerful_corporate_business_club_most_americans_have_never_heard_of

[RandomThoughts]

1. There are many interlocking groups.

Some have better some worse ideologies, but I do agree that ideology is the connectivity of the conspiracy.

Think tanks and institutions that have effect on governmental decisions through some of the financial support and back room committees. And for the most part they support their members over other people, with the intent of only their members reaching positions where they can try and influence policy. They also intersect with areas of industry and even intelligence or military.

Nobody is all good or all bad, but many of them do think that a small group should rule, and any claim against the actions of people in that group, becomes a threat to their desire to control. So when they do wrong, they fight for that action out of desire for control. The common ideology of few rule and secrecy is then segmented into methods of rule or what is the primary goal, In that you see more distinction in some ideas. Some think bringing people up and helping more people is best, others think in terms of if they can't make it without help, they shouldn't make it. Some just want people to die, like those that thought we were winning a war because we were killing people, or those with economic based population control ideas.

Sometimes internal decisions can make a change in policy, but that also skips the idea of what is best for people. Many are of the thought of the benevolent dictator, but that never works and implodes after a few generations where the group becomes removed from the population in a way that leads to feelings of superiority and lack of empathy.

In the short term, dictatorship is a more efficient system, but after it takes root it stagnates and becomes self serving, then the measures of secrecy formally used because people did not know what was best, is used for hording and consolidating wealth. in the short view, Free press, free speech, and elections do not make running a country easier, or the results better, but in the long run they do. And money owned press is not always free press.

Again many of the people are really good people, but they also maintain secrecy, and if there actions were acceptable they would not need to be secret. The argument is that the population can not understand the intricacies, so they need to be secret because people can not understand. But if you believe that then you have to suppress information and learning, while if you accept that society may not be perfect, and really should not be, then you can take a slightly less efficient system that is in the open, and allows for cross pollination of ideas, not stagnation from ideological segmentation.

If a group was in control, they would make sure there friends took over after them, this leads to the situation where the original leaders are pretty smart, and have good faith intentions, but the 2nd and 3rd generations are picked from such a small pool, they are not as qualified, and become more ideological. It is more difficult to develop the character needed to handle difficult things when life is easy, and generational rule leads to some of that, although there are also many exceptions, where people in every class of coarse have a good perspective on many things. Even attempts to find new leaders in schools and putting them on the advantaged track has problems (examples are teaching of elite philosophies only to certain groups based on arbitrary things like wealth.) But much of the life experience not on the advantaged track is what gives a leader the ability to understand the common people they are chartered to serve.

I have no problem with groups that have studied concepts of social systems, and are capable of running them, I have a problem with them thinking there idea is better, when it sometimes is more self serving. Some however believe in the idea of stewardship, not self glory, most of those types are not worried about making big bonuses though.

It is an interesting topic, and many of the groups really try to strike a good balance, but that power corrupt thing creeps in many times, and without a method of removal from transparency, those systems have to continue down those roads. If there is transparency, it can both allow other people to enter that section that want to do those things, or put a type of pressure on that system to avoid corruption.


And when I say corruption I do not mean free tickets to a Yankees game, that is ridiculous and just being used to push the guy out because he is not part of some group that defends that group. Every person that goes after the New York Mayor for free Yankee tickets that is not going after politicians for the kickbacks and buying of votes by moneyed interest, is probably part of that bigger group mentioned in the article.



On a side note, this concept is not new, there is a Biblical story, it says that the angels in heaven were told they should serve man, in pride a third of them refused and wanted to be worshiped for self glory. They were separated from God. Some that do not believe in religion actually take that metaphor literally and call themselves angels, I don't believe that people are angels, only that angels can work through many people.

So some of the people think pretty high of themselves, or defend there situations by claims of being in heaven, while the rest of the population is not, and claim that others suffer because of some punishment from God. I have heard many people refer to some groups as if the story of heaven and angels was actually the story of groups on earth. I see some of the ideologies as a similar situation, but in my belief one is in the supernatural, one in the normal world. But most principles and concepts are true everywhere if they are true. The similarity can also be argued based on the concept of making heaven on earth, were many of the same things occur.

However if a person thinks he is better then another, and by a claim of some blessed state says he is better and claims being special means he can decide things, then says many other people are suffering because they deserves it, he is either saying things like money is how you are judged, or that person is judging others based on a claim to be able to do that. I believe the role is to help people in hardship, I don't think heaven is where one person is rich and everyone else serves that person, I think it is where everyone helps the people below them to bring them up, and that is what is considered service. So the idea of there place being heaven is a delusion to allow them not to care by being able to judge others as not deserving what they get, even when they don't earn what they get from the best ways of doing things.

It even gets more interesting when the small group that think they are ordained to give out blessings, also think they are ordained to give out curses. Then what they start to do is anyone they do not like, or that challenges there view they think is perfect, but is actually a non perfect view, since nobody is perfect, they make sure the person gets harassed. A few calls to reporters in their group, or make sure the person can't work by calling bosses. Quarantines from exposure to people, Stuff like that, some of them actually think they are suppose to decide who gets favors and who gets hurt. Really sad, since there view is a limited one, and they judge on what helps them first many times. But that group is not all of them, just some of the mostly bad ones, at least from my view.

But most have many good faith ideas, and just some flaws that go with them, everyone is flawed in one way or another.