On the social crisis in Oregon—and the political malaise in the US

[Karmadillo]

The excerpts don't really do justice to this article. Worth reading from beginning to end to see where we stand at the end of 2003 (or, to be more exact, where we sit and twiddle our thumbs while waiting for deliverance).

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/dec2003/oreg-d22.shtml

“I saw in Enron an opportunity to see Adam Smith’s capitalism play itself out in probably its purest form. As compared to the other US companies where I had worked, Enron did not even make the pretense of trying to integrate the gentler social values with the ruthless ways of capitalism.”

Barely four years after stepping onto Oregon’s economic stage, Enron’s collapse exacted the following price: $100 million from PGE employees’ 401k plans and $80 million from the state’s battered Public Employees Retirement System. Portland officials investigating the possibility of buying PGE from Enron told another city newspaper, the Portland Tribune, that the corporation never paid state income taxes.

In regard to this latter offense, it is crucial to note that as grotesque and criminal as Enron was, it was not some exceptional case of “pure” capitalism amid a host of companies embracing “gentler social values.” According to an article published May 25, 2003 in the Oregonian, 65 percent of the state’s corporations paid no income taxes in 2000. Instead, they wrote $10 checks, which is the minimum required on zero liability.

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In February, shortly after Oregon’s voters had rejected the tax increase referred by lawmakers, a 22-year-old woman named Farrah Russell suffering from schizophrenia received a letter from the state. “The program which allows you to get a cash payment and medical card each month is ending ... (the) state no longer has the funding to provide this program.”

Russell had just moved out of her parents’ home into her own apartment, which is where she committed suicide one day after receiving a 72-hour eviction notice. She killed herself by swallowing a 30-day supply of anti-psychotic pills.

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