The 4 Big Ways That Insatiable Corporate Hunger for Profits Has Devastated American Life --

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/economy/4-big-ways-insatiable-corporate-hunger-profits-has-devastated-american-life-and-world-along


The 4 Big Ways That Insatiable Corporate Hunger for Profits Has Devastated American Life -- and the World Along with It

***SNIP

Health Care:

Almost half of the working-age adults in America passed up doctor visits or other medical services because they couldn't afford to pay. The system hasn't supported kids, either. A UNICEF study places the U.S. 26th out of 29 OECD countries in the overall well-being of its children.


***SNIP

Calling Themselves 'Multinationals': No Allegiance to Anyone

Big business has found its Utopia, a world in which millions of people are willing to work for a fraction of U.S. salaries.

In this dream world of global capitalism, young people are going from zero income on the farm to a few dollars a day on a 12-hour factory shift, and as a result, based on the World Bank's poverty threshold of $1.25 per day, they're no longer "in poverty." So the media piles on praise for free markets. The Economist proclaimed that "poverty is declining everywhere." The Washington Post gushed that "a billion people have been lifted from poverty through free-market competition."

***SNIP

Even Worse Than Not Paying: Making the World Pay for Them

A recent study estimated that toxic pollution affects the health of more than 100 million people, shortening their productive life spans by 12.7 years on average. A related study concluded that in 2010 over 8 million individuals were at risk of exposure to industrial pollutants at 373 toxic waste sites in three low-income countries (India, Indonesia, and the Philippines).

***SNIP


***there is a screw up in page layout on the site -- but all 4 are there.

[liberal N proud]

1. "Pillaging and despoiling the planet"

[marmar]

2. k/r

[fasttense]

3. Capitalism, like feudalism and slavery, has run it's course and needs to be replaced.

It is a corrupted and broken economic system. We, the workers must take back the means and methods of production. Not like in China and the old USSR where the State instead of capitalists controlled the production and the wealth created from it. But like in a true democracy, where the people who do the real work make the decisions.

We need to bring democracy to the workplace. Where we the workers decide what to do with the business. We can't do any worse than the current crop of CEOs and board members. Capitalism needs to go bye-bye just like it's predecessor feudalism.

[Orrex]

5. I agree, in part because capitalism is much the same as feudalism & slavery

A brutal system that enriches the very few at the expense of the multitudes.

[abelenkpe]

7. Workers need to organize globally to demand

Fair pay and safe workplaces from multinational corporations. Until they do workers from different places will be pitted against one another allowing more money and power to be funneled to the top.

[xtraxritical]

12. The Democratic Socialist country's are eating our lunch. Yeah, Socialism that's the ticket.

Socialism Socialism Socialism Socialism Socialism Socialism

[Overseas]

4. K&R. The sad truth I had hoped would not happen.

[hunter]

6. Sadly, most of us buy into the game that is rigged against us.

The odds against us worse than any casino in Los Vegas.

All the winners think they are winners until the odds turn against them, yet still they play.

The owners win, the rest of us lose.

The saddest thing is many of us think we own shares in the system when we don't. Any increase in our productivity does not show up in our pay, it only increases the wealth and political power of the economic system's true owners.

[Maineman]

8. And essentially everything wrong in Wash DC is traceable to corporate money.

We the people need to reclaim our government.

The best solution I can find is to require structured campaigns with equal time for all campaign ads, no bribery, no back room lobbying (every contact in open hearings), etc.

[Fumesucker]

9. "For the love of money is the root of all evil."

1 Timothy 6:10

[xchrom]

10. i've always found it interesting how precisely that passage is worded. nt

[abelenkpe]

11. Making the world pay them

Not only do corporations use the publicly funded infrastructure while dodging taxes, they also have manipulated governments around the globe into subsidizing them with taxpayers dollars essentially committing to an endless race to bribe corporations into moving operations and hiring their citizens. By subsidizing businesses more and more taxpayer dollars get funneled to corporations and cut from budgets for schools, firefighters, police, infrastructure and social services. Then same corporations leaders claim government can't provide those services and recommends privatizing having them take over those same services. In the end it's just another way to funnel taxpayer money to them and away from anything meant for the common good.