Unchecked Capitalism is Killing Us!

By Earl B. Rynerson

Our nation was founded on basic principles of capitalism, independence and most importantly, democracy (one person, one vote). But in the last forty years (since President Ronald Reagan), we have gradually seen our democratic form of government erode; replaced by a cabal of huge moneyed corporations, special interest groups, lobbyists and the ul

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bonneau Publishing
• Release date: Jul 4, 2020
• ISBN: 9781734849929

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Copyright © by Bonneau Publishing Inc.

All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America

First Edition: June 2020

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ISBN: 978-1-7348499-0-5 (hardcopy)

ISBN: 978-1-7348499-1-2 (paperback)

ISBN: 978-1-7348499-2-9 (e-book)

Contents

Dedication

Introduction: My Background

Chapter 1: How to Boil a Frog

Chapter 2: Unchecked Capitalism and Greed

Chapter 3: Lobbyists

Chapter 4: The Banking Industry

Chapter 5: The Auto Industry

Chapter 6: The Pharmaceutical Industry and the Opioid Epidemic

Chapter 7: The Processed Food and Sugar Industries

Chapter 8: How Capitalism has infected the Media Industry

Chapter 9: The Health Care Debacle

Chapter 10: The Coronavirus

Chapter 11: The Defense Industry

Chapter 12: The Oil and Gas Industry

Chapter 13: All Great Societies Die From the Inside

Chapter 14: Solutions

Chapter 15: A New Political Party Is Needed

Chapter 16: A Note About Religion

Chapter 17: Conclusion

Dedication

This book is dedicated to the tens of millions of people in America who have seen local companies fold and move off shore; to those who have lost jobs that previously provided a once decent income; to those who now have to work harder and often at multiple jobs for less money.

To those who have had family members become addicted to opioids or alcohol in order to mask the depression that comes from loss of employment and a realization that the American Dream (which their parents and grandparents enjoyed) is no longer in their future.

To those who have no reasonably priced health insurance (or no health insurance at all) and know that having to go to the hospital for an illness may very well force them into bankruptcy.

To those who have lost their homes due to foreclosure by banks that add new fees and charge for services you did not ask for.

To those who have seen the cost of their medications double or triple in price with no explanation.

To those who wonder why our young men and women are still dying in the Middle East after 20 years, with no clear objective or justification as to why we are there in the first place.

To all of you who feel that you have no say in how our country is governed anymore, this book is dedicated to you.

The 20 most profitable companies in 2018 according to the Fortune 500. Their profits below are all in the billions of dollars. What do they do with with all that money? Do they help build roads or bridges? Pay for new schools? Help the poor?

No, they use that money to line their pockets and to lobby Congress.

Three great forces rule the world: stupidity, fear and greed.

A. Einstein

Introduction

My Background

First, don’t get me wrong—I am not a socialist. I also do not believe that, by its very existence, capitalism is wrong. I was originally a Democrat, became a Republican a few years back, but with the hypocritical Republican do-nothings in Washington, I have recently changed my party affiliation to Independent. Today though, political parties mean nothing to me; they are too extreme, are driven by big money and corporate self -interests (ie: lowered corporate taxes) which are shooting our debt up into unsustainable levels. I am an American. I’ll say it again: I am an American, and the viewpoints and observations that I have in this book are from an American’s perspective, the same perspective that you should have. So, get rid of the Republican/Democrat/Independent mindset and focus on what’s really important; our country.

My perspectives on life, work, and personal responsibility began as the eldest kid of five youngsters growing up on a farm in Winchester, Kentucky. Fortunately, our family never had to deal with the problems of hopelessness and drug/alcohol addiction that plague so many families from that area today. (Our family was there during the 1960s and ’70s, before most of that stuff was even readily available.) My recollections of any illegal drug use back then centered around seeing the occasional local cop racing his patrol car through corn or tobacco fields, chasing some young marijuana grower in a beat-up Chevy or Ford. (Their knowledge of those fields often allowed the marijuana growers to get away…) Hemp had been a major industrial commodity in the making of rope in Central Kentucky back in the beginning of the 20th century. That pesky plant was never totally eradicated, and to this day there are wild marijuana plants that sprout up in the most unusual of places.

My dad was a country doctor in Winchester, had his own small private practice, and prided himself on telling us from time to time how he accepted payment in the form of chickens, eggs, a side of beef, or a hog from his patients, most of whom were farmers. We never had that much money (he was a lousy businessman), but we always seemed to have enough food to eat. Meals were nothing fancy. My mom was a stay-at-home mom, and she never got that much money from Dad for food; I remember a lot of arguments about that. As the eldest, I was responsible for maintaining our 2-acre garden; feeding the cows, pigs, and chickens on the farm; and for maintaining our large tree-shaded front lawn.

The day after I graduated high school in 1970, I was informed by my Dad that I had to pay my own way if I wanted to continue to live at home. That summer prior to college we agreed that I would paint the exterior of our farmhouse in return for me continuing to live in my bedroom. (It was then that I learned how difficult it was to paint a 2-story 1880s Victorian farmhouse. It’s not the painting; it’s the scraping and sanding of the exterior walls and all the nooks and crevasses that took an infinite amount of time.) It took me four months, one very tall and dangerous extension ladder, and untold gallons of paint to finish that job—but I did it.

I entered the University of Kentucky in nearby Lexington from 1970 until I graduated in 1974. I paid my entire way through college by getting scholarships and working one job during the school year and two jobs during the summer. My parents never paid a dime toward my education and I graduated without owing anybody anything (no student loans!) However, I had no social skills or close friends in college either.

My college majors reflected a lack of knowledge or understanding about what I should do with my life. I had no mentor or anyone to guide me before, during, or after my college experience. Since I had played in the high school band, I decided that my college major should be music. But I wasn’t good enough to make a career out of it, so I changed my major to engineering. However, I didn’t like anything about those classes, so I once again changed my major to political science. (It seemed as good a degree as anything else back then, especially to a kid who was clueless about life, and who had no one guiding him as a mentor.)

Fortunately, I had taken an Air Force Officer’s Qualifying Test during my sophomore year in college and I guess I did pretty well. The ROTC unit on campus started recruiting me. I accepted their offer to take ROTC classes for the last two years at college and receive some financial aid, in exchange for becoming an Air Force officer (2nd Lieutenant) after graduation. I decided to go this route, not because I particularly wanted to join the military (it was the Vietnam era), but because I felt I had no better options available to me at that time.

I ended up serving our country for 20 years as an Air Force officer in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s in Northern California. I served both Active Duty (6 ½ years) and in the Reserves (13 ½ years). I participated in Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm by flying into the Middle East. I was a member of one of the first air crews to land in Saudi Arabia to set up forward air refueling capabilities for our aircraft in that region. Later in my military career, I was responsible for interviewing and recommending dozens of young men and women who wanted to attend the Air Force Academy.

While in the Air Force, I planned numerous Civic Leaders Flights at Mather Air Force base near Sacramento. I was given the approval to personally invite dozens of business and government leaders from the San Francisco Bay area to fly with us on regularly scheduled KC-135 air refueling missions across the Western US. While flying at 30,000 ft, we would cycle those community leaders through the back of the plane where they would see firsthand another aircraft, flying a few feet behind and just under us while we supplied jet fuel to them via a large hose connected to the other aircraft. I always enjoyed seeing these folks climb up from the back of our KC-135, their eyes as big as saucers, not believing that we could do what we regularly did on our missions. After 20 years, I retired as a USAF Lieutenant Colonel and a Flight Officer (KC-135 Senior Master Navigator).

Although I was an Air Force Reservist working on weekends in the ’80s and ’90s, my main career was focused on the high-tech field in Silicon Valley, working for computer hardware and software firms. I started my high-tech career in the ’80s selling large, refrigerator-sized Hewlett Packard computers to businesses in San Francisco, and I ended it 20 years later as an Ecommerce Business Consultant to high-tech companies in San Francisco and Boston. During that time, I worked on completing my master’s degree in business management and marketing from Golden Gate University in San Francisco. After receiving my degree, I was asked to teach graduate-level business management and marketing courses to students for several years at Golden Gate University in San Francisco.

I was also able to support several non-profits in San Francisco. I was president of the board of directors for Big Brothers/Big Sisters in San Francisco, a member of the Treasure Island Restoration Advisory Committee, and active in the United Way and in a couple of neighborhood organizations.

Since 2002, I owned my own non-technical retail business in South Florida. As a business owner, I’ve only been moderately successful, but I’ve been able to support myself and employ others. After 17 years, I decided to sell my business in May 2019.

Why I Wrote This Book

I have also dabbled in politics. While living in San Francisco, I was asked by then Mayor Frank Jordan to become a Commissioner for the City’s Department of Human Services, an agency that had fiduciary responsibility for hundreds of millions of dollars annually. I saw how the City handed out cash to addicts and alcoholics each month, actually making their addiction problems worse. I wrote Proposition E entitled SFCARES (San Franciscans for Cash Assistance Reform with Enhanced Services) to reduce cash handouts and provide more services to the homeless. I was promptly and very publicly vilified by the far left as a heartless demon. My proposition failed, but two years later a revised version was promoted by a San Francisco City Supervisor, Gavin Newsom. His proposition, called Care Not Cash was approved by voters. It wasn’t a word-for-word copy of my proposition, but the concept was the same: stop handing out cash to the homeless and provide services to them instead. That measure helped Newsom become Mayor of San Francisco, then Lieutenant Governor, and now Governor of California.

In Florida, I unsuccessfully ran for local public office in Fort Lauderdale and was vilified again as a gay man—this time by the far right. I nonetheless established a blog that was sent to over 14,000 local email addresses; for over eight years I wrote about the excessive spending that local government leaders allowed in our City. Our City’s budget was almost twice as large as other cities our size but the services we received as taxpayers were no different than what residents in other cities received with smaller budgets. Our City’s budget grew astronomically, sometimes at a 15% to 20% increase year over year, because of the growth in revenues from property taxes.

But rather than reduce the tax rates or improve City services, the revenues were spent on increasing the salaries, pensions, and bonuses of city workers. The average city resident at the time had an income of around $45,000/year. The average City Employee had an income of over $80,000/year; many police had incomes of over $100,000/year, each with their own police car (some had incomes of over $200,000). The chief of police at the time had a total income of over $400,000/year, double dipping with a chief’s salary and a prior police pension. The City Manager’s salary was over $240,000/year in 2010, with a golden parachute in his hiring contract.

Under the old Mayor and City Manager, the City’s infrastructure was in decline; revenues from the water and sewer bills were siphoned off for non-essential projects. Now in 2020 the new Mayor (Dean Trantalis), has been trying to frantically patch up the rotting, leaky sewer pipes that have been breaking at an alarming rate around the City. But now revenues are limited. Property values are not skyrocketing as they once were. The only way to repair the old sewage system is for the City to establish bonds or take out loans. Local residents are on the hook for the repairs either way, and they will be seeing their water bills and tax bills increase as a result. The former Mayor and City Manager of 9 years both abdicated their responsibility to govern the city properly and spend taxpayer money wisely. Residents of Fort Lauderdale were never fully aware of (or perhaps even interested in) the problem back then, which was such a shame. They are now paying for the irresponsible and wasteful spending by the previous administration.

I’m telling you all this to simply give you a better idea about my background, which might help you understand why I feel the way I do about the topics in this book. I’ve learned in life that if you don’t take care of yourself then no one else will. Don’t assume that others have your best interests at heart. I learned to be tough while in the military and not get pushed around. I’ve learned that if you see something wrong, do something about it, even if you don’t achieve your objective. Trying and failing is better than not trying at all. I learned in business that the best companies usually are small ones; the larger the company, the less interested that company is in their customers and employees. I learned an important lesson in both business and politics: people don’t always play by the rules. People (both in business and in politics), will often lie, bend, or break rules if it serves their purpose and if they can get away with it.

This then, is why I wrote this book: to help you see that for the last 30-plus years our Democracy has been dying right before our eyes. The unrivaled success of corporate capitalism in our country (coupled with paid-for armies of lobbyists) has created corporate behemoths and oligarchs of such size (and exhibit such greed and selfishness by their executives and board members) that they have been damaging our health, our safety, and indeed our Nation’s democracy.

These capitalistic forces have slowly been destroying our nation more than any invading foreign power ever could. They have used donations, bribes, unlimited PAC funds to politicians’ re-election committees, and employment opportunities for politicians and their families. Their frontline soldiers are those lobbyists who have taken over Washington DC and now control our elected leaders, mandating that our government be run to support their corporation’s interests, not ours. This has been going on since the mid-eighties under the Reagan administration and has gradually gotten worse, to the point that our current government no longer works for or represents us; it works for and represents corporate interests.

You may not believe me now, but after reading this book I hope that maybe I will have opened your eyes a bit.

The following chapters will focus on specific industries, companies within those industries and will show how greedy and corrupt these corporations have become. It will demonstrate how your life has become worse off as a result, and what we as individuals can try to do to (over time) solve these problems. A warning: there are no overnight fixes.

To survive and improve our quality of life, we as a people must fundamentally change our perspective of Washington, DC. We must realize that, over the last 30 years, our government has slowly been taken over by large corporations and moneyed special interests. It is at the point today that no legislation gets passed without the approval of large corporations and special interests. Hell, they even write their own legislation today and tell our elected officials to pass it or else. Would this be acceptable to you if a foreign country suddenly took over our government and dictated what laws and legislation would be approved?

Of course not! But that is what has happened. Our democracy has been taken over by corporations and their special interests. To end this, we as individuals need to start doing something that most of us have never done before: we must become politically active, both as individuals and as members of groups. We must restore our nation to the way it was before—when our country and government focused on meeting the needs of its citizens, not those of corporations or special interests.

But if you say I’ll let someone else do that and return to watching nonsense crap on television while drinking your extra-large sugary soda and eating bags of fatty, salty snack foods, then we have lost the war. Your life will continue to worsen and corporations will be laughing at you, lining their pockets with your hard-earned money. You will continue to become poorer, fatter, sicker, and less tolerant of others.

So WAKE UP, people!

Earl B. Rynerson

Over 100 years ago, President Theodore Roosevelt made a statement about the dangers of unchecked capitalism in the Gilded Age when he wrote the following in a letter to S. Stanwood Menken on January 10, 1917:

The things that will destroy America are prosperity at any price, peace at any price, safety first instead of duty first, love of soft living, and the get-rich-quick theory of life.

(From The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt,

Harvard University Press.)

Chapter 1

How to Boil a Frog

What?! How does boiling a frog relate to this book about how capitalism is killing us?

The boiling frog concept is a metaphor for the difficulty humans have to see or react sufficiently when a threat gradually arises. It relates to the thought (now largely disproven) that a frog, if placed in a pot of boiling water, will immediately jump out if it is able. However, if the frog is placed in a pot of cold water where the temperature is turned up gradually, it will happily cook itself to death. Although the temperature gets warmer, because the change is so gradual the frog doesn’t notice it. So the frog gets used to the rising temperature to the point that it doesn’t know that the surrounding hot water is killing it.

In fact, there were studies done in the late 1800s that suggested this gradual water temperature change in a frog’s environment to be true. William Sedgwick wrote in 1882 that if the temperature was gradually raised at .0002 degrees centigrade per second, the frog would remain in the water and die in 2.5 hours. Although more current studies have largely disproven this phenomenon, the concept continues to hang around to this day and is an accurate metaphor for what happens (or doesn’t happen) when change is gradual.

When a change happens that is sudden, we are able to react to it (like the bombing of Pearl Harbor). But when a change is so gradual that we don’t notice the evolution from day to day, we often (unfortunately), accept the change over time. Mass shootings with automatic weapons have become an example of how a horrific event can (over time) become an unfortunate norm within the minds of millions of our fellow citizens, especially when large special interests (like the NRA), help to tamp down any change or reaction from politicians (politicians who have the responsibility to protect us from enemies, foreign, and domestic). Through their donations and their threats to support other candidates, the NRA is able to convince Republicans and many Democrats to stymie any gun control legislation every time one of these mass killings occurs.

Other historical examples of this phenomenon:

-In Nazi Germany in the 1920s and 1930s, many of those in power in the Nazi Party cautioned against instituting changes in government suddenly; many of the laws (especially of those against Jewish people) were instituted gradually. Over a period of years, many in Germany came to accept the horrible and restrictive way of life that eventually was forced upon Jewish families.

-Abusive domestic relationships can be another example of when things can get worse gradually, but the recipient of the abuse doesn’t take action, hoping for improvement (which sadly never comes). Over time, the recipient can start to accept the behavior of the abuser as the norm and learn to live with the abuse, while people around the recipient can only shake their head and wonder why.

-Hitler’s bombastic rhetoric in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s was thought of by most Germans initially as wacko. But over time, they accepted his harsh words, hatred, and lies as the norm. (Does that ring a bell with what we are dealing with in 2020?)

-Today (2020) in the US, we Americans have a President who is self-absorbed, breaks laws, and lies every day. In any other previous administration, we (Republicans, Democrats, Independents) would have found this behavior unacceptable and would have initiated immediate impeachment proceedings. After three years of Trump’s constant lying, we seem to have become inured to his behavior.

-Every year our planet gets a little bit warmer, but like the frog we are accepting it. Regular flooding in low-lying areas, more intense storms, tornados and hurricanes, more beach erosion, etc. If (in the 1950s for example), we had a year of storms and temperatures like we seem to have regularly now, we would have been up in arms if we knew we had the ability to do something about it. Now, we shrug our collective shoulders; we seem to be getting used to it.

It’s the same with capitalism. The problem is that, in our country, capitalism is gradually but constantly growing, getting stronger, always looking for ways to become more powerful, corporations more profitable, their executives wealthier, finding new ways to avoid taxes, etc. And the larger the corporation gets, the worse it becomes. Like an addict to drugs, large corporations become addicted to their own wealth and power and constantly seek ways to become even wealthier and more powerful. Do you keep hearing the phrase we need to lower our taxes and have fewer regulations? It’s the drumbeat that (for years) has been pounded into the heads of politicians and right-wing conservatives by corporations and their lobbyists with an agenda.

Large corporations are judged by their stockholders, their board members, and Wall Street as to how much larger and more profitable they are this year over last year; how their stock price is performing (is it better than last year?); how large are their dividends. Corporations today are never measured by the quality of their products; how much better the quality of service is to their clients; employee satisfaction; or if they are good stewards of the environment. No, these measurements don’t matter to large corporations. Size, profitability, reducing headcount by looking for cheaper offshore workers, giving executives fatter paychecks and bigger stock options when they succeed in reducing headcount are the elements that matter most to them. These elements have become the corporation’s own measure of success.

Because these are their objectives, large corporations have learned that gradually instituting business practices that are questionably unethical (but have the ability to generate more profits) are the easiest ways to continue to grow and reward themselves. Some examples of this behavior include:

-Gradually getting rid of US employees in customer service departments and hiring offshore workers at the fraction of the cost (who often lack English language skills).

-Changing corporate websites into propaganda pages. Corporations love to talk about how great they are on their website, but try to find a phone number to call with a complaint; you can’t find one anymore. If you do find a number to call, you usually get routed to 4–5 different departments. Large corporations purposely make it difficult for you to communicate with them when you have problems. It’s more profitable for them if they are able to ignore you.

-Corporate restructuring so that corporations don’t have to continue paying pensions that were promised to workers.

-Moving offshore (on paper at least) large chunks of corporate and manufacturing operations so that corporate taxes are reduced or eliminated entirely.

-Paying money to Washington DC lobbying firms so that corporate interests are dictated to our elected officials (see Chapter 3 in this book entitled Lobbyists).

And remember, these changes have not all happened overnight; they happen gradually, one policy change at a time, one company at a time. We’ve become used to it, unfortunately.

So today, when you get a letter from a company that says, In an effort to provide better customer service, we are making the following changes to your account, it usually means that you are getting screwed.

When did this problem begin?

If you want a start date on the problems with unchecked capitalism and associated corruption, you would do well by examining the Ronald Reagan era in the mid-1980s. (Read the next chapter for more information on this.) Beginning in his first term, Reagan, with advice and guidance from his appointed staff (many of whom were former business executives), began allowing other executives from large corporations to come into the White House to advise on governmental policies. Over time, we began to see changes coming out of Washington: tax rates for corporations plummeted, regulations were reduced and corporations started bending rules, corrupting politicians and engaging in risky (and often unlawful) behavior.

FYI: We have had at least two monumental financial meltdowns in the last 30 years (the Savings and Loan debacle of the late 1980s and The Great Recession of 2008, both caused by corporate greed and lax, unenforced corporate regulations. The economic cost to us? Over $2 trillion dollars, according to many studies.

Ever since the mid-eighties then, large corporations have learned that the way to have the government do their bidding is to get into the tent of politics. Get to know the elected leaders, educate the politicians on policies that benefit corporations, help with politicians’ campaigns, and (since 2010) donate unlimited monies to Political Action Committees (PACS) that help that particular politician and hurt other politicians that don’t agree with that corporation.

They used the now worn-out phrase: Doing this helps creates jobs and grow the economy. Yet has that ever been proven? Or how about the worn-out phrase: We need to lower our taxes. Taxes on whom? Corporate executives could care less about the taxes you and I pay. They are only interested in lowering corporate taxes or taxes on themselves! They already pay less in taxes than you or I do, and many (like Trump) pay no tax at all.

This has been going on now for over 30 years, and every year it seems as if Washington becomes less responsive to the needs of the taxpayer and the voter, yet every year policies and laws that benefit large corporations seem to get passed, just like the 2018 tax reform measure. This was nothing more than another giveaway to the wealthy corporate elite. That legislation (who most Republicans voted for, yet never even read) has thrown our nation deeper into debt and is representative of the new American motto: "Of Corporations, by Corporations, and for Corporations!"

Even today, die-hard Republicans talk wistfully of the Reagan era, yet that was the era in government that started the decline of the taxpayer in favor of big business. And you can thank Reagan-era policies for allowing this to start and for subsequent administrations for letting things get gradually worse.

So the next time you drive across a rusty bridge and see pieces falling off; or have your car’s suspension damaged by an unrepaired pothole; or go to an airport that for years has been in need of repair and expansion; or wonder why the US doesn’t have an active space program any longer, or why teachers can’t get even basic supplies for their classrooms; or why millions of children go to bed hungry every night; or why you have to sit in traffic for hours, now you’ll know why: It’s because the Reagan administration started the practice of allowing Big Business to set government policies, reduce corporate regulation, lower corporate taxes, and drown our nation in debt to the tune (now) of over 25 trillion dollars!

Their successful efforts to ensure that they pay less or no tax and have fewer regulations to adhere to have resulted in our country’s inability to fund projects that are important to us, the average citizen and taxpayer. Go to the moon again? Hell, we can’t even fix our crumbling bridges! But we sure as hell can spend trillions of dollars in the Middle East to build bridges and schools for them! And many of those schools, bridges, and buildings get shelled or blown up later by angry locals.

And just like that frog, we American citizens have been gradually getting boiled alive by the policies that favor unfettered corporate greed which end up hurting you, the taxpayer.

Chapter 2

Unchecked Capitalism and Greed

Core problem: greed and corruption in the pursuit of continual growth

What does unchecked capitalism coupled with little or no government regulation mean to corporations and for YOU the taxpayer:

For Corporations:

Capitalism = Corporate growth

Huge corporate growth (over time) = huge profits

Huge profits = greed

Greed = lobbying and corrupting our elected politicians

Corrupt politicians = reduced corporate regulation, lower corporate tax rates

Reduced regulation and taxes = even bigger corporate profits

And so the cycle continues…

For Taxpayers:

Corrupt politicians = no new legislation or regulations to protect American taxpayers

No legislation or protective regulations = financial meltdowns, bailouts, rusty bridges, and polluted water. Our country becomes poorer, fatter, sicker, more depressed, and less tolerant of others, thanks to corporate greed and corruption in the US.

If you could take this entire book and boil it down to just a few words, what I just wrote largely encapsulates the core problem every American is facing today.

The problem with unfettered capitalism is not obvious. You don’t see it happening all around you every day. You will sometimes see ads on television promoting some Ask your doctor about medicine being manufactured by one of the giant pharmaceutical companies. They want you to tell your doctor what to prescribe (shouldn’t it be the other way around?). You see other ads promoting a company rather than a product, like ads promoting Koch Industries or Wells Fargo Bank (these television ads are now known as Corporate Propaganda, designed to blunt negative news about that company). What you see and hear from pharmaceutical companies and banks, etc. on TV are the tip of the iceberg.

What you don’t see are these large multinational companies (e.g., Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, Koch Industries, and Wells Fargo Bank) that continually employ hundreds of lobbyists in Washington D.C. and around the country for one purpose: to ensure that our elected leaders listen to and obey them (not us). And they achieve their goals with money; lots of money; millions and millions of dollars. Billions of dollars! They use a small fraction of their huge profits to pay for these lobbyists and to fund a politician’s election (and/or re-election) campaign. It has become impossible for our elected leaders to do what is in the best interest of us and our nation when they are looking at a $100,000 check from some corporate lobbyist made out to that politician’s reelection campaign committee. Worse yet, it becomes even more difficult to withstand these lobbyists and their corporate owners when there are implied threats to fund a competitor’s campaign (instead of theirs) if they don’t do what is asked.

All this seedy activity in Washington D.C. (and throughout the US) of buying politicians to insure their compliance (reducing corporate taxes and regulations) and publicly trashing any elected representative who doesn’t toe the corporate line are paid for with the huge, growing corporate profits that capitalism has generated.

Over time, unchecked capitalism has created incredible corporate growth and huge profits which is good, up to a point. But over time, growth creates greed, and greed causes the bending or outright breaking of rules and laws pertaining to how businesses and their executives are supposed to be operating. Greed overpowers standard business morals, ethics, and regulations that were originally put in place to control that behavior.

As corporations get larger and larger, they are able to put increasing pressure on our elected officials to loosen or eliminate existing regulations that would otherwise require companies to follow health and safety standards, to pay their fair share of taxes, or adhere to environmental protections. And it’s not just donations for an election or re-election campaign; it can include other activities such as paid-for press of either a positive or negative nature, future employment for the politician and their family, and paid-for fact-finding trips all over the world.

In fact, many politicians will readily admit that they (as a governing body) are corrupt! Jon Schwarz of Theintercept.com (July 30, 2015) compiled a list of past quotes from politicians who have admitted that money controls politics.

Here is part of his article that I have included:

For instance, Tom Corbett, Pennsylvania’s notoriously fracking-friendly former governor, received $1.7 million from oil and gas companies but assured voters that The contributions don’t affect my decisions. (If you’re trying to get people to vote for you, you can’t tell them that what they want doesn’t matter.)

I gave to many people before this, I was a businessman. I give to everybody. When they call, I give. And do you know what? When I need something from them two years later, three years later, I call them, they are there for me. And that’s a broken system. — Donald Trump in 2015.

[T]his is what’s wrong. [Donald Trump] buys and sells politicians of all stripes… he’s used to buying politicians. — Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, in 2015.

Now [the United States is] just an oligarchy, with unlimited political bribery being the essence of getting the nominations for president or to elect the president. And the same thing applies to governors and US senators and congress members.… So now we’ve just seen a complete subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors… — Jimmy Carter, former president, in 2015.

[T]he millionaire class and the billionaire class increasingly own the political process, and they own the politicians that go to them for money… we are moving very, very quickly from a democratic society, one person, one vote, to an oligarchic form of society, where billionaires would be determining who the elected officials of this country are. — Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, in 2015. Sanders has also said many similar things, such as I think many people have the mistaken impression that Congress regulates Wall Street.… The real truth is that Wall Street regulates Congress.

You have to go where the money is. Now where the money is, there’s almost always implicitly some string attached.… It’s awful hard to take a whole lot of money from a group you know that has a particular position then you conclude they’re wrong [and] vote no. — Vice President Joe Biden in 2015.

[T]oday’s whole political game, run by an absurdist’s nightmare of moneyed elites, is ridiculous—a game in which corporations are people and money is magically empowered to speak; candidates trek to the corporate suites and secret retreats of the rich, shamelessly selling their political souls. – Jim Hightower, former Democratic agricultural commissioner of Texas, 2015.

People tell me all the time that our politics in Washington are broken and that multimillionaires, billionaires and big corporations are calling all the shots… it’s hard not to agree. — Russ Feingold, three-term Democratic senator from Wisconsin, in 2015 announcing he’s running for the Senate again.

Lobbyists and career politicians today make up what I call the Washington Cartel.… [They] on a daily basis are conspiring against the American people.… [C]areer politicians’ ears and wallets are open to the highest bidder. — Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, in 2015.

I can legally accept gifts from lobbyists unlimited in number and in value… As you might guess, what results is a corruption of the institution of Missouri government, a corruption driven by big money in politics. — Sen. Rob Schaaf, R-Missouri, in 2015.

When you start to connect the actual access to money, and the access involves law enforcement officials, you have clearly crossed a line. What is going on is shocking, terrible. – James E. Tierney, former attorney general of Maine, in 2014.

Allowing people and corporate interest groups and others to spend an unlimited amount of unidentified money has enabled certain individuals to swing any and all elections, whether they are congressional, federal, local, state… Unfortunately and rarely are these people having goals which are in line with those of the general public. History well shows that there is a very selfish game that’s going on and that our government has largely been put up for sale. – John Dingell, 29-term Democratic congressman from Michigan, in 2014 just before he retired.

When some think tank comes up with the legislation and tells you not to fool with it, why are you even a legislator anymore? You just sit there and take votes and you’re kind of a feudal serf for folks with a lot of money. — Dale Schultz, 32-year Republican state legislator in Wisconsin and former state Senate Majority Leader, in 2013 before retiring rather than face a primary challenger backed by Americans for Prosperity. Several months later Schultz said: I firmly believe that we are beginning in this country to look like a Russian-style oligarchy where a couple of dozen billionaires have basically bought the government.

I was directly told, ‘You want to be chairman of House Administration, you want to continue to be chairman?’ They would actually put in writing that you have to raise $150,000. They still do that — Democrats and Republicans. If you want to be on this committee, it can cost you $50,000 or $100,000 — you have to raise that money in most cases. — Bob Ney, five-term Republican congressman from Ohio and former chairman of the House Administration Committee who pleaded guilty to corruption charges connected to the Jack Abramoff scandal, in 2013.

The alliance of money and the interests that it represents, the access that it affords to those who have it at the expense of those who don’t, the agenda that it changes or sets by virtue of its power is steadily silencing the voice of the vast majority of Americans… The truth requires that we call the corrosion of money in politics what it is — it is a form of corruption and it muzzles more Americans than it empowers, and it is an imbalance that the world has taught us can only sow the seeds of unrest. – Secretary of State John Kerry, in 2013 farewell speech to the Senate.

American democracy has been hacked.… The United States Congress… is now incapable of passing laws without permission from the corporate lobbies and other special interests that control their campaign finances. — Al Gore, former vice president, in his 2013 book The Future.

"I think it is because of the corrupt paradigm that has become Washington, D.C., whereby votes continually are bought rather than representatives voting the will of their constituents.… That’s the voice that’s been missing at the table