Ten Ways We can Starve the Wall Street Beast and Prosper...

In this age of Wealth Hoarding by the upper 5% percent of our society, here are a few things you can do to fight back and still prosper in-spite of increasing corporate domination of our civilization's asset's. Don't be a pawn in their game...

1. Shorten Your Home Mortgage: Less of your income will flow into their financially engineered Interest machine.

2. Think Local: Support the local economy, not Wall Street and the Mega-Corps.

3. Start a Business: A small side business like U-Pick fruits and veggies, or cheap child-care, just in case the Pink Slip comes...

4. Invest Wisely: Thoroughly research your 401K and Retirement accounts.

5. Check Out Credit Union Membership: Dump the banks, they are not on your side...

6. Don’t Use Credit Cards from Corporations That Abuse You: All of the following have one thing in common: Home Depot, Exxon Mobil, Shell, Macy’s, Sears, Zales. They all extend credit to their customers on a Citigroup credit card. Forty million customers are helping to prop up Citigroup and its anti-consumer, anti-citizen practices by using these cards

7. Brand Attacks: Chances are high that your local storeowners don’t have a PAC and lobbyists on K Street working against your interests? Reward them with your business and starve the S&P 500 firms until they get the message.

8. Return the Courts to Workers: Many of the largest corporations force workers to sign away their rights to the Nation’s courts as a condition of employment. It’s called mandatory arbitration and it’s an unfair process that is rigged to favor the corporation. If you interview for a new job, ask if the company has such a policy and walk away if they do.

9. Complain: Don’t let shady practices go undetected. Write a detailed report and file it with the appropriate body: local district attorney, state attorney general’s office, consumer protection groups; and write a letter to the editor to the local paper.

10. Just Say No: To frontal nudity photographs/skin radiation/genitalia groping; all just to board a plane. Don’t fly. You will be standing up for civil rights and starving Wall Street. Body scanner companies trade on Wall Street and the banksters are hoping domestic surveillance is their new cash cow.

And above all, realize that ALL current political party's are tainted by corporate control.

If everyone followed these steps, we can change our system on an individual basis. Just be prepared, if you do, because you will soon be assualted by hordes of well meaning but deluded people telling you how un-American you are for standing up for your rights. Have faith, and be persistent... Don't let the drones wear you down.

This article is a summary of the info contained at AlterNet

This Should not be Happening...

Socialist Europe appears to be winning the personal wealth game as we slip into a Mexican style economy.

The Economics of Disaster Capitalism

A new economic theory is making it's rounds in some circles. It is based on the observation that the capitalist foundation of our system has learned to profit from disaster and strife. Not only have corporate interests learned to profit by selling things, it is said they also use the "Shock and Awe" period after disasters, catastrophes, and wars to push through unpopular laws and legislation that puts their interests ahead of the populations of those areas affected. Examples of which, as has happened in many South American countries, are complete deregulation of the economic system so that the existing system lay in ruins and they hold all the money-making cards. The public is left in the poorhouse, with a huge gap between rich and poor, and no social services to speak of. Sound familiar?

The Communist dictator Stalin (not really anyone we should listen to, mind you) seems to have been a very astute observer in this case. He once remarked about this when discussing Capitalism during the war years, though no one really understood what he meant, at least until now.

He said "The development of world capitalism does not follow a steady and even course forward, but proceeds through crisis and catastrophes."

Ten years ago, this would not have been given much thought. After having been at war in Iraq and Afghanistan for nearly this long, with no seeming end in sight, these theories are being looked at much harder.

Writer Naomi Klein has a book out about it, called interestingly enough, The Shock Doctrine.

Save Money, Shop Where Wal-Mart Shops...

The following article was originally posted on Huffington Post:
While many American retailers are just one lackluster back-to-school season away from disaster, the malingering recession has been very good to some retail manufacturers—especially in China.
American shoppers at Wal-Mart have made investors in Hong Kong very wealthy. By one estimate, in 2006 every Wal-Mart store in the United States caused the loss of about 77 American jobs due to Wal-Mart’s trade deficit with China. Without knowing it, millions of American consumers have been shopping at Fung-Mart.
A Chinese global conglomerate little known in this county has been ‘living better’ off of Wal-Mart’s sales. Li & Fung is not a household word in Kansas or Arizona—but it’s one of the main beneficiaries behind the Wal-Mart sales numbers. Described as the biggest supplier of clothes and toys to companies like Wal-Mart, Target and Kohl’s, Li & Fung has been one of the fireworks of the Hang Seng Index, and its stock has more than doubled this year.
Li & Fung describes itself as “one of the premier global consumer products export trading companies managing the supply chain for high-volume, time-sensitive consumer goods including garments, fashion accessories, toys, sporting goods, promotional merchandise, handicrafts, shoes, travel goods and household items.” Its products are sourced through a network of offices in nearly 40 countries for customers in the US, Europe, Asia and the Southern Hemisphere.”
Read the rest of this story ...

Consumerism as a Religion

I found this interesting little blurb on Axis of Logic...

Consumerism as a Religion

In the United States, materialism is the religion and shopping malls are the churches - all 46,000 of them. Consumerism is the liturgy and the prayer is the longing for more things. The worshippers earn the money and pay the bills when they come due. Finance capital makes the whole enterprise possible.

As a religion, consumerism teaches the gospel of material value, individual freedom and personal anonymity in our cities and towns. In the countryside, the holy writ teaches us that agrarian traditions, customs and cultural norms are heresy. Everywhere, it discourages intra-familial relationships, social cohesion, support systems and community. It teaches the righteousness of competition with one another and that working together, dependence on others, meeting one another's needs, and sharing our possessions are sins to be overcome. Skeptics are shunned and their heresies condemned. Marketing strategies and advertising techniques are employed to bring unbelievers into the fold - even the little ones.

Marketing Strategies: Consumerism lies at the heart of capitalism, both for its own survival and also as an instrument that targets traditional values in any culture. The capitalist system depends upon an ever expanding market for an increasing number of products in the global corporate empire. It relies on production of new products, no matter how trivial and on sophisticated marketing machinery necessary to penetrate new markets.

The capitalist machine develops methods to sell people what they do not need and often do not really want. An old fashioned maxim in invention, production and sales marketing was once "meet a need, don't create one". Over the years, marketing techniques have been developed to convert "wants" into "must have" and desires into essentials. Cellular telephones serve as an example. Everyone in the family, including children "need" a cellular telephone and if parents object the phone is sold as a security item for keeping contact with the child who may have an emergency. A cheap cell phone gave way to one with a camera and an MP3 player which now gives way to a "Blackberry" with enhanced computer capabilities. A myriad of other products come to mind, burdening family incomes, creating family conflicts and undermining cultural norms and values. If it were not for this power to corrupt, strong non-material values would reverse an expanding market.

There is much more, and it is an interesting read...