This Democrat is watching

Ms. Warren’s adversaries are said to be trying to keep her off the banking committee, where she could push for more regulation, while her admirers want her to be on it. “Her strategy will depend on what happens,” said Simon Johnson, a professor at the M.I.T. Sloan School of Management. “If she doesn’t get on the banking committee, then she’ll take a more outspoken approach.” He said that Democrats as a whole had not followed through on several issues of financial reform, so “it matters a great deal” where Ms. Warren is assigned. “Not putting her on banking would make the Democratic Party look like a creature of Wall Street, which, by the way, it is,” Professor Johnson said. “But they don’t like to be too explicit about it.”

Katharine Q. Seelye, "New Senator, Known Nationally, Sometimes Feared", in The New Yorks Times, 10 November 2012.

Another Death in the "War on Terror"

I am going to vote for Barack Obama for president in November, and I have good reasons to do so. The Democratic ticket more closely represents my ideals, though it isn't perfect. I believe in gay rights; I believe in a woman's right to choose her own birth control and to have low-cost, easy access to methods that prevent pregnancy in the first place. I believe that the wealth gap is widening in our country, that corporations and the rich have too much power. I really think we should have universal healthcare and that the government should be able to negotiate lower drug prices. I believe in a public education that helps its citizens to become critical thinkers. I believe in the separation of church and state. The Republican Party, as it exists today, supports policies that are inimical to  these ideas, and it's largely responsible, through following the rhetorical instructions of people such as Newt Gingrich, in creating the toxic public rhetoric that drives our politics today. In addition, under the presidency of Barack Obama, Republicans have been pig-headedly obstructive in these times of economic crises, putting politics before the good of the country.

That being said, one of my really big disappointments in the Obama administration is its inability to shut down Guantanamo Bay and its continuing many of the war policies of the Bush administration. And I despise the fact that the DOJ hadn't the balls to go after those who approved administration-sanctioned torture in its "war on terror." (How's that working? Has terror disappeared from the face of the earth?) Unfortunately, voting Republican would not create a change here, either. Mitt Romney is being advised by some of the same neo-cons who got us in the war in Iraq with their lies and unbelievable naiveté about how long the war would last, how much the war would cost, and how little the war would impact the very people we were supposed to be liberating. 

My disappointment is magnified by stories such as that of Adnan Latif, who was finally successful this past week in his many attempts to commit suicide in that national disgrace of a prison, Guantanamo Bay. 

Congress, of course, is greatly at fault, too, in abdicating its responsibility to declare war and in allowing the executive branch to accrue more power. And so are we responsible, too, in our silence, in our eager readiness to follow that presidential advice years ago to "go shopping" rather than to deal with the harsh realities of our nation's actions.

Adnan Latif is finally returning home after ten years. . . . in a coffin. I doubt his death has aided the "war on terror." Do you?

Protecting the Rich and Powerful

This morning, I read on Salon's website an article titled "The Rich Aren't Like You and Me," by Michael Winship. Winship describes how the rich are getting richer and richer and the poor, poorer and poorer. CEO pay and compensation continues to grow while workers' salaries stagnate. Of 438 companies analyzed:

[a]t 158 of the companies, more was paid to those in charge than was shelled out for outside audit fees. And 32 of them paid more in top salaries than they paid in corporate income taxes. The pay of 2591 executives was up 13.9 percent in 2010. Total, before taxes: $14.3 billion, almost equal to the GDP of Tajikistan, population: more than seven million.

The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (See also, here) was passed in 2010, in response to the financial crisis, but interested parties have been chipping away at its regulatory power. One of the requirements of the Dodd-Frank would have made transparent the difference between CEO compensation and worker compensation of publicly traded companies: "The Dodd-Frank Act requires publicly traded companies to disclose the median annual total compensation of all employees of the company, the annual total compensation of the CEO, and the ratio comparing those two numbers."

Some folks, however, think that gathering this information is just "too burdensome" for companies and that the money spent gathering that information would best be spent on hiring workers. (Really, how difficult would it be for a company to publish that information in its annual report?) So Rep. Nan Hayworth (R-NY) has sponsored a bill--which has passed in the Committee on Financial Services--to do away with this "burdensome" requirement. Companies, of course, have a vested interest in not making this kind of information easily available to the public--and their own workers. Nan Hayworth also has a vested interest. As Michael Winship points out, Nan Hayworth's official biography

cites 'reducing regulatory burdens on businesses' as one of her top priorities. Among her leading 2010 campaign contributors: leveraged buyout specialists Vestar Capital Partners, distressed debt investors Elliott Management and financial services giant Credit Suisse. Not to mention the anti-taxation Club for Growth.

Businesses, of course, are making profits once again in our stressed economy; workers, however, are not seeing their pay rise accordingly.

So I was curious to see who co-sponsored this bill to lift such a "burdensome" requirement, as outlined in H.R. 1062: Burdensome Data Collection Relief Act. Here are the names: Judy Biggert (R-IL), Francisco Canseco (R-TX), Bob Dold (R-IL), Scott Garrett (R-NJ), Michael Grimm (R-NY), Peter King (R-NY), Bill Posey (R-FL).

As Peter Whoriskey reports in his article in the Washington Post, "Business Group: Public Companies Shouldn't have to Compare CEO and Worker Pay":

The committee vote was largely along partisan lines: Twenty-nine Republicans and four Democrats supported repeal; 21 Democrats opposed it.

As income disparity grows in this country, it's interesting to see just who forms alliances to hide that disparity and to protect the rich.

And so it goes.

Additional information:
members of the Committee on Financial Services

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