Sick! Wall St. $18,000,000,000 in Bonuses at Christmas & ExxonMobil made $45,200,000,000 last year

[Divine Discontent]

To hell with 'big business' - I'm beyond furious as millions of Americans are losing their jobs or their homes these past few years - even people in my own family, and these arrogant criminal scam artists enjoy major wealth at the expense of taxpayer debt through the bailout, and then through our wallets with big oil/energy.

I will make it my top issue this year (pushing Congress to have oversight of business & force them to punish those who scam America) and will be giving it the most energy I give any issue. We're on the edge of the cliff here just waiting for a strong breeze to push us over the edge - any major event could very well send us, because of our national economic health, into a long-term national Depression.

Anyone know of any groups who focus on this, please let me know, I'd like to join them or support them, because an oil company making about $1500 a second last year in PROFIT (that's 5.4 Million a minute!) is unconscionable to allow in this country when there's widespread job loss and poverty (there's a word you rarely here even now). We need a full national effort to push clean energy in our automobiles now - imagine if every car ran on batteries - how awesome that would be, and the price would drop on the cost of them if the gov't got involved with major incentives to buy one - we need to break big oil's hold on the world. I'd like to hear what groups are the best to get organized with, and that use their donations wisely.

[Bonobo]

1. There is a phrase in Japanese to describe them.

"Kajiba no dorobo". It means "Thief at the scene of a fire". It refers to someone who waits until there is a fire so they can steal into the house unnoticed and rob the place blind.

We need a new Teddy Roosevelt to deal with these thieving swine.

Someone needs to fuck their shit up.

[Divine Discontent]

6. I like it, thank you! Yes, a new Teddy is needed - the billionaire crooks need arrested - the nation

will certainly be behind the arrests! "Someone needs to fuck their shit up"... spot on.

[Bonobo]

8. You must be from Pittsburgh!

"need arrested"! Love it.

Yens guys have the best accent!

[Divine Discontent]

9. haha... midwest, yes.

[Bonobo]

10. Can you be more specific?

I'm just interested in language in general.

I lived in the Chicago area, Southern Illinois, Eastern Iowa, but I never heard that grammatical construction until I lived in Pittsburgh.

So without spilling more than you want to, did you grow up near Pittsburgh?

[jwirr]

14. Do we still have Teddy's big stick? In other words are the monopoly

laws still on the books? How much taxes will there be on the $45 billion?

[Horse with no Name]

2. The pirates are wallowing in money while the rightful owners wallow in poverty

Disgusting.
The oil belongs to US. I think the time to nationalize is now.
Big oil has not divested ANY money into the infrastructure yet are making obscene profits off of our oil.

It's time to take the banks, the oil, and the healthcare out of the hands of the pirates and put it back in the hands of the people.
NOW!
:mad:

[Rosa Luxemburg]

18. can we get a refund?

[Two Americas]

21. well said horse

Well said. Thanks.

The pirates are wallowing in money while the rightful owners wallow in poverty.

[Ichingcarpenter]

3. But, But..... Hugo Chavez!!!

Is bad!

[Divine Discontent]

4. exactly! so bad! never mind I'm all for nationalizing energy, and never mind he gave to help

people suffering in this country. W needs locked up with the rest of the cabal. I'm fully expecting the Obama Adm. to lock them all up - if not, and the money isn't seized - they will have gotten away with massive theft and massive warmongering for profit.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

5. It would be slightly less bad if...

...they weren't such fucking idiots.

These are the overlords? :shrug: :rofl:

[Divine Discontent]

7. !

:rofl: so true...

[FightingIrish]

11. The last time the priveleged got this arrogant

the guillotine came into fashion.

[Lint Head]

12. I know where that finger's been.

Up his own ass.
:dem:

[texastoast]

13. Buy some stock

You need only one share to be able to attend the annual meetings and raise hell.

If you and others join together, you can get resolutions printed on their Notice to Shareholders of Annual Meeting. The meeting has to vote on them.

You get the publicity going and the national mindset starts to swing. Grassroots, baby.

http://www.truveo.com/Videojournalist-arrested-at-Halliburton-Protest-in/id/4019464233

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMIBtznqUWc

[Divine Discontent]

20. an interesting premise.

thanks for the links

[ima_sinnic]

22. for people unfamiliar w buying stocks, I recommend ShareBuilder

until * "came into office" & started gaming the system, I was slowly buying fractions of shares of many different co's, creating my own mutual fund. After the 2000 coup, though, I lost all confidence in stocks & stopped buying and eventually sold off everything except the ones that had lost so much value it would have cost me money to sell them.

Yes, I received notices all the time of shareholder meetings and got ballots to vote (mostly on members of BODs, but also occasionally on "issues")

http://www.sharebuilder.com

[pleah]

15. I will kick and recommend every one of these threads that

that lists these gross atrocities of the corporate glut and theft of taxpayers money.

[chill_wind]

16. #8. n/t

[Irish Girl]

17. absolutely disgusting

meanwhile the average honest hardworking American is struggling to provide for their family and children. : (

How can these people bare to even look themselves in the mirror? Extreme megalomaniacs with extreme financial clout.. scary times.

[Bonobo]

19. Honestly, they should swing.

[Norrin Radd]

23. kr

[Divine Discontent]

24. Thanks Norrin Radd! I see there's riots across Europe, we're in economic ruin, and this whole thing

could go bang if action isn't taken. Hoping the vote in the Senate happens next week. Also, hoping the Obama Adm. holds CEOs accountable, fines corporations that broke the law, billions, and sets this country back firmly on it's roots of accountability. The BFEE has really done much damage to our nation.

[1776Forever]

25. Follow the Money Right Back to Bush’s Legacy Of Squandering Taxpayer Money»

This is just part of the mind set of the Bush Legacy Of Squandering Taxpayer Money»

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/09/21/bush-legacy-taxpayer-funds/

President Bush announced his $700 billion plan to buy out troubled financial institutions. Demanding enormous faith in his administration’s stewardship, the plan “would place no restrictions on the administration other than requiring semiannual reports to Congress, granting the Treasury secretary unprecedented power to buy and resell mortgage debt,” and to hire outside firms “to help manage its purchases.” Further, the proposal provides no oversight mechanism:

Sec. 8. Review: Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

Bush is demanding unprecedented control over billions of dollars — with no oversight.

His history of mismanaging taxpayer dollars should make Americans skeptical of his buyout plan:

IRAQ RECONSTRUCTION

-$142 million wasted on reconstruction projects that were either terminated or canceled.

-“Significant” amount of U.S. funds for Iraq funneled to Sunni and Shiite militias.

-$180 million payed to construction company Bechtel for projects it never finished.

-$5.1 billion in expenses for Iraq reconstruction charged without documentation.

-$10 billion in spending on Iraq reconstruction was wasteful or poorly tracked.

-Halliburton overcharged the government $100 million for one day’s work in 2004.

KATRINA

-Millions wasted on four no-bid contracts, including paying $20 million for an unusable camp for evacuees.

-$2.4 billion in contracts doled out by FEMA that guaranteed profits for big companies.

-An estimated $2 billion in fraud and waste — nearly 11 percent of the $19 billion spent by FEMA on Hurricanes Katrina and Rita as of mid-June.

-“Widespread” waste and mismanagement on millions for Katrina recovery, including at least $3 million for 4,000 beds that were never used.

DEFENSE CONTRACTS

-A $50 million Air Force contract awarded to a company with close ties to senior Air Force officers, in a process “fraught with improper influence, irregular procedures, glaring conflicts of interest.”

-$1.7 billion in excessive fees and waste paid by the Pentagon to the Interior Department to manage federal lands.

-$1 trillion unaccounted for by the Pentagon, including 56 airplanes, 32 tanks, and 36 Javelin missile command launch-units.

Given Bush’s history of gross fiscal mismanagement — including an unprecedented number of no-bid contracts and Bush’s resistance to closing fraud loopholes or increasing oversight of contracts — why should Americans trust another $700 billion to his care? Paul Krugman writes, “Let’s not be railroaded into accepting an enormously expensive plan that doesn’t seem to address the real problem.”