Big Bidness Babble

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Starring in order of appearance: Some Harvard Economics dweeb, author of “Some Crap You Bought To Read On The Plane”; some wild-ass up-all-night, Monster Energy-guzzling, stock-market playing Wall Street geek, author of “Some Crap You Bought To Read On The Plane”; and some shallow, glitzed-up ex-Chamber Of Commerce honcho who’s now the executive director of some big-ass retailers’ association, author of “Some Crap You Bought To Read On The Plane”.

Inspired by a lively, witty exchange between some pals on Bluesky a couple of weeks ago, riffing on business media pundit shartage.

(At this point, has there ever been a panelist or Guest Contributing Analyst on The Network Formerly Known As MSNBC who hasn’t been pushing a book on the air lately?)

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Finishing The Job

It is with anxiety, chagrin and dread that I present this, my first cartoon of the 2024 Presidential “election” slog…

…and despite the massive disappointment and lack of enthusiasm of huge swaths of Democratic voters, Gropin’ Joe announced his re-election campaign kickoff with a promise to “finish the job”… at which point yours truly, like millions of others, is cringing and asking themselves: what job would THAT be — immiserating the poor and the working class? Terrorizing immigrants and bullying our next-door neighbors? Fattening up the war profiteers and Wall Street? Beating down anti-war dissent in public media? Dragging us into World War III?

Lotta big jobs to finish there, Joester; guess you’re going to need four more years to thoroughly screw things up, huh?

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Won't Somebody Think Of The Shareholders?

No doubt that day last week will go down as "Black Wednesday" for all the death'n'misery profiteers out there: the day the US Trade Representative's office announced its support for a waiver of patent protection for COVID19 vaccines developed by Pfizer, Biontech, Novavax, and Moderna — and Wall Street crapped its pants. 

After week after week after week of hell raised about places like India, where they're dying like flies and can't get enough vaccine because American corporations, true to form, are hoarding the supply and the IP protection — the US Trade Rep has decided that waiving patent protection on vaccines during a worldwide pandemic might be a pretty good idea after all... and this hasn't stopped Wall Street from doing the voodoo that it do so well — setting shares of all four of those companies dropping like a rock on Jupiter. 

Buddy, can you paradigm?

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Gentlemen Prefer Hillary

Economic justice seems so sentimental,
but Wall Street is a girl's best friend --

15 an hour is so detrimental,
when Wall Street is a girl's best friend...!

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Housing For All!

Not a whole lot to say about this one — just a solidarity shout-out to all my comrades down at Occupy DC, a salute to their efforts to build a General Assembly hall at the McPherson Square camp for use as an assembly hall and as a symbol of the need for affordable housing in the midst of rampant foreclosures and escalating homelessness.

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Images via OccupyDC streaming video feed.

“A Day In The Life Of The People’s Pentagon”, at OccupyDC.org. (Skip the comments; it’s the usual right-wing trollage and attendant flamefest)

#OccupyDC Visits Democratic Party Fundraiser

Dough Nation

Last night's fundraising dinner for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, held at the offices of the investment firm of Folger, Nolan, Fleming and Douglas, had a minimum contribution of $5000, and a maximum of $75,000. Make no mistake -- the Democrats are One Percenters all the way. So, Occupy DC decided to pay them a visit for a little Mic Check action. Let's join the fun...�

Support OUR Troops!

Well, at long frickin’ last, the media have finally gotten around to realizing that there’s a class war on, and have finally gotten up the cajones to actually use the term “class war”. What’s even more heartening to me is that at last our side has finally gotten off the deck and is fighting back.

So, gang, seeing as how we’re in a class war, that can mean only one thing: it’s time to Support Our Troops!

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Infiltrator!

The consensus over here on the Left is that there is a danger to the Occupy Movement far greater than any amount of pepper spray, mace, tear gas or blunt force trauma that could be dished out by various metropolitan police departments, or any amount of buffoonish insults crapped out by Fox News — and that is the danger of being co-opted by the Democratic Party in the form of its various front groups. On the upside, though, this generation of dissidents seems less likely to fall for Democratic Party snake oil, unlike their older comrades who came out of Seattle/WTO, “A16″, and the early ’00s peace movement.

The Democrats’ co-optation attempts are especially galling in the context of the latest news of the Obama re-election campaign fundraising efforts. They’re continuing the pace set during the ‘08 campaign, when the Democrats first surged ahead of the GOP in the amount of campaign cash coming from Wall Street and the banksters.

Not only that, but it’s right out in the open, butt-assed naked, reported on the front page of this past Thursday’s Washington Post. The real “money shot” comes eight paragraphs deep:

Obama’s ties to Wall Street donors could complicate Democratic plans to paint Republicans as puppets of the financial industry, particularly in light of the Occupy Wall Street protests that have gone global over the past week.

“Could complicate Democratic plans”? No shit, Sherlock.

Of course, this inconvenient truth won’t stop the likes of Michael Moore, the AFL-CIO, MoveOn and the Progressive Democrats Of America from trying to weasel their way in and divert the movement’s energy down the Democratic Electoral Black Hole anyway, because that’s just the way they are — exploitive, manipulative, parasitic, amoral.

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We Are The 1%

As if the celebrities and Liberal politicians barging in on the Occupy Movement aren’t bad enough, now the movement’s having to contend with Mr. Wall Street Water Boy himself, President Barack Sparkle Pony Obama, claiming support for the protests, although in classic Obama fashion, he waters it down by pleading with them to not “demonize” the banksters and brokers. Yes, the man who pushed the Democrats ahead of the GOP in the Wall Street Campaign Donations Department in 2008, whose Treasury Department maintains a revolving door with Goldman Sachs and who, in this year’s Presidential campaign, has already set a record at shuffling for investment bankers and stock brokerages, has sent a shout-out to Occupy Wall Street. What’s worse is that despite Obama’s obvious, shallow election-cycle pandering to the Left and his ongoing brown-nosing of Wall Street and the bankster scum, the Tea Party crowd still insists on claiming that he sincerely supports the Occupiers — and, of course, that he’s a Marxist.

With that in mind, here’s a little bit of ammo for you to use on those Teabagger nutcakes who try to connect President Sparkle Pony to the Occupy Movement, even though anyone who didn’t ride the short bus to school knows he’s been Wall Street’s boy for years, and is simply trying to pander to the movement and exploit it in classic Democratic Party fashion.

Americans for Campaign Reform: Both parties profit from Wall Street
Sourcewatch: 2008 Obama campaign financing: more donations from investment banks, hedge funds, and Wall Street
Obama Taps Wall Street for Dollars, Washington Post 07.16.07

Just a little reminder that the Democratic Party is no more a friend of the workers than the GOP. Black Agenda Report’s Margaret Kimberly had it totally nailed down when she tweeted a warning to the Occupy Movement to “don’t let the Dems in”.

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Occupy DC: Spank Of America!

Dupont Circle branch of Bank Of America wussies out, closes ahead of protest visit “due to circumstances beyond our control”

"Occupy" Movement: Beware the Vampire!

Oh, hot damn! Here's the Democratic Party back again, to suck all the oxygen out of the room!

So, a couple of weeks into the Wall Street occupation, I read that Michael Moore and Roseanne Barr had stopped by, and immediately I thought oh, great, here come the goddamn’ celebrities to glom onto the movement. As if that wasn’t bad enough, a little while after that, I read where MoveOn and the Working Families Party had both glommed on at the same time, and my first thought was holy shit, here comes real trouble!

For those of you who’ve been living in a cave for the past decade or so, MoveOn is the liberal astroturf outfit formed in 1999 to shill for Bill Clinton during his impeachment trial for personal malfeasance, under the banal slogan “Censure, And Move On”. Since then, they’ve been responsible for the co-opting, bloodsucking and destruction of more popular peoples’ movements in this country than you can shake a stick at — such as the antiglobalization movement and the peace movement, just to name a couple. Now these vampires have set their sights on the “Occupy” Movement, no doubt claiming all up and down that they’re there to “support” them.

Luckily, most of the folks in the movement are hip to MoveOn’s bullshit, as we can see in the vast majority of comments in this discussion on Facebook:

The other evening, I stuck my head into the bedroom — where my wife was camped in front of the TV, as usual — for a moment, just in time to hear Chris Matthews (aka The Baby Eater) asking if the Occupy Movement could be “harnessed” to help Obama win re-election? Luckily, I hadn’t eaten yet, or else I’d have been projectile vomiting all over the carpet. Seriously, these TV howlers just kill my ass dead. I swear, they couldn’t find a clue with a goddamn’ map. Sometimes I think the news networks could just bring in an ape and let it howl and fling its own shit around the studio for an hour, and it would still be better-informed commentary than that of Baby Eater Matthews.

The Occupy Movement isn’t here to be “harnessed”, it’s here to give a voice to the 99% of the people in this country who’ve lost their homes and jobs, who are struggling to keep a roof over their heads and feed their families if they do have jobs, and pay most of the taxes while the 1% doesn’t contribute jack shit and gets away with thievery and murder. The Occupy Movement is about social and economic justice and freedom — not about helping to prop up the Democratic Party and re-elect Barack Fucking Obama.

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DC Is Occupied, At Last!

The "Occupy" Movement: now with 95% more "nyan"!

It was mostly the usual suspects, for sure, but it was still great to see Our Side finally get off its ass and into the streets again. Despite all the talk about Teabaggers beginning to get involved, I only saw the usual smattering of LaRouchies and Paultards, who were largely ignored except by those in need of cheap laffs. Also, much to my delight, I spotted one — count ‘em, one — 9/11 Tr00th freak in the crowd, his sign still demanding that someone “Investigate WTC 7".

#OccupyTheUSA

While scrolling through my Twitter feed this week, I came upon the latest reports of vicious and abusive police behavior at the Occupy Wall Street protest camp in NYC. A crowd of about 80 marchers were surrounded by police and “kettled” with a bunch of dayglow orange plastic netting and kept corralled while being maced and pepper-sprayed prior to their arrest.

About the same time, though, I caught the heartening news that the Occupy Wall Street protests had expanded to Chicago, Kansas City, Los Angeles and Dallas (there may have been more since this cartoon was done, but I haven’t heard yet).

So, here’s one in solidarity with the gang at Occupy Wall Street in NYC and elsewhere!

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Follow Occupy Wall Street on Twitter here, and on the Web here.

Standard And Poor

After years of sucking up to Wall Street and giving out AAA ratings as if they were Cracker Jack prizes — becoming an accomplice in the United States’ economic meltdown — Standard & Poor’s suddenly turns around and knocks an “A” off the United States’ AAA debt rating after the recent debt ceiling pro wrestling match on Capitol Hill. Who’da thunk it?

Am I the only one here who thinks that outfit should change its name to Substandard & Piss-Poor?

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Don't Call Us – We'll Call You

Sorry I’m bit late with this one; I’d originally planned to do this about a week or so ago, except the Bahrain Grand Prix story got really hot and shoved everything else out of the way.

Anyway… as you’ll recall, Obama got himself “elected” in ‘08 by pandering to Liberals and Progressives with a lot of big talk about the “fat cats” in the banks and on Wall Street – even as the Democrats were beating out the GOP in donations from Wall Street. Then, as you’ll also recall, Obama spent the next two years alienating Progressives by pandering to the banks and Wall Street, and appeasing the rightists.

So, then, a week or so back, Obama called together a bunch of the aforementioned financial industry “fat cats” to spend some time shuffling for dollars for his re-election campaign. The banksters, needless to say, felt rather alienated by all his anti-bank and anti-Wall Street rhetoric he dished out while pandering to the Progressives and many ‘08 donors were none too keen on the idea of supplying more cash for Obama’s ‘12 campaign.

Oh, well, Mr. Obama… as they say, “that’s show biz”.

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