Our Imperial Capital, Washington D.C, has become more and more a self-contained world, divorced from the day to day concerns of ordinary Americans. In recent weeks, a clearer picture of this world-unto-itself has emerged from various news stories which, unwittingly or not, provide details about how the rampant corruption there actually works. I've drawn it up in the simple diagram below.
This diagram of the political process is mostly self-explanatory. The process is self-contained. The only real participation allowed to the general public is rubber-stamp voting every 2 years.
I'm merely going to list my sources. They are divided into Direct Information, Circumstantial Evidence, and Pure Corruption.
Direct Information
-
The Washington Post story The supercommittee's K Street connections richly documents the revolving door between special interests and their lobbyists, and former congressional staff members.
Nearly 100 former aides to members of the Congressional supercommittee now work as K Street lobbyists, often representing clients with a vested interest in the panel's decisions. A half dozen former lobbyists are also currently employed by the lawmakers. The connections mean that many lobbyists are now trying to convince their former employers to go easy on their corporate clients.
Unfortunately, their informative, interactive diagram can not be easily reproduced here, so visit the Post to get the details.
-
When Jack Abramoff got out of jail, he spilled the beans to 60 Minutes about how influence is peddled. His story strongly corroborates the Washington Post story just listed—the best way to "own" a congressman is to offer his chief of staff a job in Lobbying Heaven (K Street). I wrote this up in The Idiot's Guide To Buying A Congressman.
-
The invaluable website OpenSecrets.org tells us which special interests are bribing giving campaign donations to which congressmen as well as how much they've paid out in the current or past elections cycles. For more details, see the Huffington Post's The Cash Committee: How Wall Street Wins On The Hill. Also see my post Who Will Guard The Guardians?
Circumstantial Evidence
-
Justice department criminal prosecutions of financial fraud have been declining since 1999, demonstrating that appointed regulators are either corrupt or doing what they are told.
Federal prosecutions for financial institution fraud have continued their downward slide despite the financial troubles reported in this sector. The latest available data from the Justice Department show that during the first eleven months of FY 2011 the government reported 1,251 new prosecutions were filed. If this activity continues at the same pace, the annual total of prosecutions will be 1,365 for this fiscal year, down 28.6 percent from their numbers of just five years ago and less than half the level prevalent a decade ago.
Bill Hicks (a pseudonym) reported on this in Criminal Prosecutions for Financial Fraud FALLING Under Obama. There's even a graph documenting the decline in fraud prosecutions.
- Surely you remember the Energy Revolution which would lead us, heads held high, into the Brave New World of the 21st century. Or maybe you don't. It doesn't matter either way, because it's business-as-usual in the Imperial Capital. This was brought home when Solyndra (solar energy) went bankrupt, as reported in the Daily Ticker's Peter Schweizer: Solyndra Is “Tip of the Iceberg” of “Very Suspicious” Govt. Loans.
Whether or not you believe politics played a role in the Solyndra loans — or whether you even care — is probably a function of your political affiliation. But Hoover Institute fellow Peter Schweizer says Solyndra is just the "tip of the iceberg" of what he calls "very suspicious loans" made by President Obama's Energy Department.
Of the $20 billion of government grants and loan guarantees made to green-tech companies by the DOE since 2009, over $16 billion were allocated to "Obama-related companies," Schweizer tells me in the accompanying video. "By that I mean either the chief executive or leading investor was a member of his campaign finance committee or was a bundler for his campaign."
For example, 16 companies backed by venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins have received DOE green-tech loans, he notes. Kleiner Perkins founder John Doerr is a major Obama supporter and former Vice President Al Gore is a senior partner at the firm.
Other examples include BrightSource, which received a $1.4 billion loan and whose backers include Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergei Brinn.
A full list can be found here and the green-tech loans are detailed in Schweizer's new book, Throw Them All Out, where he claims the Obama administration may have conducted "the greatest — and most expensive — example of crony capitalism in American history."
Dr. Steven Chu denied that favoritism played a key role in who got research money. "I want to be clear: over the course of Solyndra's loan guarantee, I did not make any decision based on political considerations," Secretary Chu declared. The Earth is flat, the climate is not changing, and so on.
Pure Corruption
-
Finally we get the Good News that many long-standing members of Congress leave the Imperial Capital richer than when they first arrived. In fact, investments by members of Congress consistently outperform the markets. Is this because they're all geniuses? I think not! What's their secret? From the Huffington Post—
Members of the House of Representatives considerably outperform the stock market in their personal investments, according to a new academic study.
Four university researchers examined 16,000 common stock transactions made by approximately 300 House representatives from 1985 to 2001, and found what they call "significant positive abnormal returns," with portfolios based on congressional trades beating the market by about 6 percent annually.
What's their secret? The report speculates, but does not conclude, it could have something to do with the ability members of Congress have to trade on non-public information or to vote their own pocketbooks — or both.
The report speculates but does not conclude that congressmen trade on non-public informaton? Is the Pope Catholic? Does a bear defecate in the woods? As documented in Peter Schweizer's book, insider trading is rife in the Congress. I reported on this in Our Government Is Completely Corrupt, so see that post (and stories referenced therein) if you want the grim details.
A slim majority of the American people, the ones who vote, either 1) want to believe that their political system is on the level; or 2) have stuck their heads so deeply in the sand that they can not receive (nor emit) useful information. Apparently, most of the rest, the ones who don't vote, don't give a damn.
This is end of the Roman Empire stuff. But in Roman times, it took centuries for the decline and fall to play itself out. When Alaric's Visigoths sacked Rome in 410 AD, I think it was safe to say that empire's glory days were behind it. It took about three centuries to get to that point.
In the modern world, things happen far more quickly, and at what seems to be an ever-accelerating rate. What took three centuries for Rome to "achieve" has happened in three decades in the United States. And while it is true that we're not going to be literally sacked by Visigoths or the Chinese anytime soon, the beyond-the-pale corruption documented here, and plenty more there was not enough time and space to include, means that we've already been metaphorically sacked by fraudsters of various types.
All we can do now is document the decline and fall. Economic theories regarding how to proceed don't matter much at this point. The political "debate" about current and economic policy has become almost wholly irrelevant to the nation's future.
Only History and Human Nature matter now.
Ænema (1996)
"Some say the end is near.
Some say we'll see armageddon soon.
I certainly hope we will cuz
I sure could use a vacation from this
Stupid shit, Silly shit, stupid shit..."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_Xsd_aCVNs&feature=related
"The only way to fix it is to flush it all away."
Tool had an assocition with Bill Hicks (the original)
Posted by: Diogenes | 11/21/2011 at 01:01 PM