Documentary: The Corporation Nation

[dys]

Part 2 @ 3:30. Clint compares Bill Gates' stock ownership to that of mutual funds, astounding stuff.

Why is it that no one seems to care about this information?

dys

[lapis]

If people don't dismiss it out of hand right away, I think it's just too overwhelming to take it all in. And what can we do about this information? That's the million dollar (or billion or trillion dollar) question.

[DMac]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhkWu...C9369A235E0D00

Part 2 of this series, on pension funds.

'Corporate Governance' is a term this guy uses to describe the phenomenon of government corporations collectively owning so much stock that they actually have controlling interest in every major corporation in the US (and a lot of the minor ones for that matter). They control what these corporations do through what is called proxy voting. This particular eposide details CAFRs of pension funds, which are themselves their own corporations along with municipalies, cities, towns, townships, districts of all types, states, countries, courts, etc. Of course they are NOT underfunded but filthy rich, and on top of that they are mostly funded by the taxpayers and not the people that work for the corporations that have pension funds (example- teachers/CALPERS).

I've had some conversations with certain people that I respect regarding this conspiracy. The objection I usually hear is: "I don't see how we could pay off the national debt with these assets, there is no buyer." Fair enough, or more aptly from where I sit- MAYBE.
However, that is but one issue related to this conspiracy. Questions without answers:

1. If we the people own these assets, how come we don't have access to these assets? For example, why isn't every person given their own piece of property? These corporations have plenty of real estate holdings free and clear...assets paid for by the taxpayers.
2. If we the people own these companies, why are we allowing these countries to outsource? Furthermore, why aren't we given access to the products of these companies? For example, the US government is the largest holder of computer makers Apple and Microsoft. Why aren't we given computers?
3. Why aren't we given input into issues such as risk of investments, proxy voting powers and decisions, oversees investments, et al?
4. If we can't access these investments, why can't we opt out?
5. What about the obvious conflict of interest that arises when government that owns a corporation is charged with enacting legislation related to the same corporation that they own?

And there are a million more related questions as well.

dys

These questions you ask, of why "we the people" can't access this money (paraphrasing) - palani's posts on citizenship come to mind here (herd ownership through the FED beast).

[TheNocturnalEgyptian]

Glad this is up, I missed it the first time around. Thanks for linking me here, dysgenic.

[dys]

Also, this thread:
http://gold-silver.us/forum/showthre...highlight=CAFR

dys

[dys]

File this under the 'something else to consider' department. It recently occured to me that Fortune 500 corporate profits are nothing short of another stealth tax. If corporations are all majority owned by government (and btw, when I say 'majority' I don't mean 51%, it's more like 91%), the profits of said corporations are actually a tax. If you add this not unsubstantial tax to all of the other taxes we pay, what is the true tax rate of this country? I would venture to say that it's well in excess of 99%.

And it gets worse than even that. Any realistic assessment of the true financial position of government has to include not just the 185,000 CAFRs of various government corporations, it also has to include the CAFRs of all of public corporations that government owns a majority stake in. If government owns a 90% stake in Microsoft, for example, that means that 90% of Microsoft's assets belong to government which is supposed to be us!

There is real money behind this operation.

Gordon Gecco: "I'm talking about liquid. I'm talking about the kind of money that I don't have to waste time."
They've got that, and more. Much more.

dys

[Santa]

Privately owned profit, publicly owned debt. How clever.

[Book]

Privately owned profit, publicly owned debt. How clever.

Even before the CIA mercenaries killed Gaddafi the entire corporate wealth of Libya disappeared. Who has it now?

could happen to California

[TheNocturnalEgyptian]

This is probably the most important issue on the forum to popularize. Dysgenic is right about this.

CAFRs for state governments should be distributed along with a page explaining that every state, town, government, is a corporation that has its own CAFR, which are all investing tax money into public companies, to the point where they are majority shareholders in almost every public company you could name. But these are private corporations (who are the government, or owned by the government) making these actions. They cut "we the people" out, probably due to the nature of our tax agreement. They're allowed to invest with "we the people's" money, yet they claim they don't owe "we the people" for it.

Of course they sell assets which used to be public, to private foreign entities. I think someone called that treason in the video.

[dys]

The pretense of 'freedom of the press'. How exactly does that reconcile with a government that owns every major main stream media corporation?

dys