Third World America (33 page)

1
Since 1964 the American National Election Studies
: American National Election Studies, “The ANES Guide to Public Opinion and Electoral Behavior,” 27 Nov. 2005,
www.electionstudies.org
.

2
In the mid-1960s, only 29 percent
: Ibid.

3
And in 2008, 80 percent of Americans surveyed
: “World Publics Say Governments Should Be More Responsive to the Will of the People,” 12 May 2008,
www.worldpublicopinion.org
.

4
In 2009, more than 13,700 registered lobbyists
: Dave Levinthal, “Federal Lobbying Climbs in 2009 as Lawmakers Execute Aggressive Congressional Agenda,” 12 Feb. 2010,
www.opensecrets.org
.

5
double the amount lobbyists spent
: Center for Responsive Politics, “Lobbying Database,” 25 Apr. 2010,
www.opensecrets.com
.

6
From 1974 to 2008 the average amount
: Alan R. Grant,
The American Political Process
, 7th ed. (New York: Routledge, 2004), 252.

7
to more than 1.3 million
: Center for Responsive Politics, “Big Picture: Price of Admission,”
www.opensecrets.org
.

8
For an example of how special interests took advantage
: Simon Johnson and James Kwak, “Too Big for Us to Fail,” 26 Apr. 2010,
www.prospect.org
.

9
According to Simon Johnson and James Kwak in their book
: Simon Johnson and James Kwak,
13 Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown
(New York: Pantheon, 2010), 91.

10
And the money was, of course, targeted
: Ibid.

11
Over the course of the debate
: Brian Wingfield, “Wall Street Overhaul Not So Bad for Wall Street,” 17 May 2010,
www.forbes.com
.

12
For instance, when the Senate was crafting its financial reform bill
: “Fannie, Freddie Need to Be Part of Reform: Corker,” 18 May 2010,
www.cnbc.com
.

13
This despite the fact that in just the first quarter of 2010
: Gretchen Morgenson, “Ignoring the Elephant in the Bailout,” 7 May 2010,
www.nytimes.com
.

14
As of May 2010, according to Morgenson
: Ibid.

15
“I don’t understand why people are not talking about it”
: Ibid.

16
And why would they do that
: Ibid.

17
Indeed, as far back as 1910, Teddy Roosevelt warned
: Theodore Roosevelt,
The New Nationalism
(New York: The Outlook Company, 1910), 13.

18
Teddy Roosevelt must have been spinning in his grave
: Adam Liptak, “Justices, 5–4, Reject Corporate Spending Limit,” 21 Jan. 2010,
www.nytimes.com
.

19
President Obama called the decision “a major victory …”
: Ibid.

20
Or the chemical industry’s long-term cover-up
: Dan Agin, “More than Genes III: Pregnancy, Toxic Environments, and Fetal Vulnerability,” 1 Dec. 2009,
www.huffingtonpost.com
.

21
Or the way Big Tobacco has fought tooth and nail
: American Cancer Society, “Cigarette Smoking,” 24 Nov. 2009,
www.cancer.org
.

22
Or the outrageous ripping off of the American taxpayer
: Kimberly Hefling, “Iraq Contracts Have Cost Taxpayers at Least $85 Billion Since Invasion,” Associated Press, 12 Aug. 2008.

23
Days after the Upper Big Branch disaster
: Michael Cooper, Gardiner Harris, and Eric Lipton, “In Mine Safety, a Meek Watchdog,” 10 Apr. 2010,
www.nytimes.com
.

24
In an eerie echo, in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon
: Russell Gold and Stephen Power, “Oil Regulator Ceded Oversight to Drillers,” 7 May 2010,
www.wsj.com
.

25
Florida senator Bill Nelson summed it up
: Ibid.

26
Chris Oynes, the Interior Department’s top official
: Carol E. Lee, “Oynes to Resign in Wake of Oil Leak,” 17 May 2010,
www.politico.com
.

27
Elizabeth Birnbaum, the head of MMS, was forced out
: Tom Raum and Jennifer Loven, “Elizabeth Birnbaum Quits Under Pressure: MMS Director Is Pushed Out After Gulf Spill,” Associated Press, 27 May 2010.

28
Indeed, a federal inspector was at the Upper Big Branch mine
: Michael Cooper, Gardiner Harris, and Eric Lipton, “In Mine Safety, a Meek Watchdog,” 10 Apr. 2010,
www.nytimes.com
.

29
Similarly, there are plenty of financial regulatory agencies
: Craig Torres, “Fed Says Capital at Some Major Banks Is ‘Substantially Reduced,’ ” 24 Apr. 2009,
www.bloomberg.com
.

30
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight
: Jonathan J. Miller, “The Federal Housing Finance Agency: Regulators Awaken!” 19 Nov. 2008,
www.nytimes.com
.

31
And, after Bear Stearns crashed, the New York Fed
: Andrew Ross Sorkin, “At Lehman, Watchdogs Saw It All,” 15 Mar. 2010,
www.nytimes.com
.

32
Regulations are “very difficult to comply with”
: Jason Linkins, “Massey CEO Blankenship Has Complained About ‘Nonsensical’ Regulation,” 9 Apr. 2010,
www.huffingtonpost.com
.

33
The
Wall Street Journal
cites the arguments
: Russell Gold and Stephen Power, “Oil Regulator Ceded Oversight to Drillers,” 7 May 2010,
www.wsj.com
.

34
“There has been a very good record in deep water [drilling]”
: Ibid.

35
Similarly, the reason the financial industry can’t be regulated
: Shahien Nasiripour and Ryan McCarthy, “Greenspan Testifies to Financial Crisis Commission, Blames Fannie, Freddie for Subprime Crisis,” 7 Apr. 2010,
www.huffingtonpost.com
.

36
Massey offers a textbook—and in this case tragic—example
: Michael Hupp, “Reports Critical of Massey, Other Mining Operations,” 22 Apr. 2010,
www.statejournal.com
.

37
In 2009, its Upper Big Branch mine was ordered
: Daniel Malloy, “Upper Big Branch Mine Forced to Shut Before,” 9 Apr. 2010,
www.post-gazette.com
.

38
That same year, the mine was cited for 515 violations
: “Miners’ Families Cling to ‘Sliver of Hope,’ ” Associated Press, 7 Apr. 2010.

39
In 2010, by the time of the explosion
: Emily C. Dooley, “Safety Violations Posted at Massey Mine,” 7 Apr. 2010,
www.timesdispatch.com
.

40
What’s more, in the ten years before
: Kim Bobo, “Psalm 20 and the Massey Mining Disaster,” 19 May 2010,
www.huffingtonpost.com
.

41
So how did Massey escape greater oversight
: Steven Mufson, Kimberly Kindy, and Ed O’Keefe, “West Virginia Mine Has Years of Serious Violations, Officials Say,” 9 Apr. 2010,
www.washingtonpost.com
.

42
At the time of the explosion, Massey was contesting
: Ibid.

43
According to another loophole in the law
: Thomas Frank, “Mines Carry Backlog of $90M in Violations,” 8 Apr. 2010,
www.usatoday.com
.

44
Only $ 8 million of $113 million
: Ibid.

45
The BP disaster has a similar story line
: Marcus Baram, “Big Oil Fought Off New Safety Rules Before Rig Explosion,” 26 Apr. 2010,
www.huffingtonpost.com
.

46
Over the last decade the Minerals Management Service
: Eric Lipton and John M. Broder, “Regulator Deferred to Oil Industry on Rig Safety,” 7 May 2010,
www.nytimes.com
.

47
The piece of equipment that the industry resisted
: Russell Gold, Ben Casselman, and Guy Chazan, “Leaking Oil Well Lacked Safeguard Device,” 28 Apr. 2010,
www.wsj.com
.

48
The replacement value of the Deepwater Horizon platform
: Ibid.

49
As for fines for safety violations
: Marian Wang, “Oil Companies Pay a Pittance in Penalties to Offshore Drilling Regulator,” 4 May 2010,
www.propublica.org
.

50
between 1998 and 2007, BP racked up a dozen
: Ibid.

51
Even after the Gulf catastrophe, oil companies
: Ian Urbina, “Despite Moratorium, Drilling Projects Move Ahead,” 23 May 2010,
www.nytimes.com
.

52
one of the exempted projects was run by BP
: Marian Wang, “After Spill, More Gulf Drilling Plans Got Environmental Exemptions,” 11 May 2010,
www.propublica.org
.

53
Not content with controlling politicians and kneecapping
: Linda Keenan and Janine R. Wedel, “Shadow Elite: Think BP’s the Bad Guy? Think Bigger, Way Bigger,” 13 May 2010,
www.huffingtonpost.com
.

54
The names of the Wall Streeters
: Matthew Vadum, “Goldman Sachs Government,” 16 Oct. 2008,
www.spectator.org
.

55
The finance industry has 70 former members of Congress
: Public Citizen, “Stop Congress’ Revolving Door of Corruption,”
www.citizen.org
.

56
This includes 33 chiefs of staff, 54 staffers of the House
: Arthur Delaney, “Big Bank Takeover: Report Blames Revolving Door for ‘Too Big to Fail,’ ” 11 May 2010,
www.huffingtonpost.com
.

57
Five of Senate Banking Committee chair Chris Dodd’s
: Kevin Connor, “Big Bank Takeover: How Too-Big-to-Fail’s Army of Lobbyists Has Captured Washington,” Institute for America’s Future, 11 May 2010,
www.ourfuture.org
.

58
Of course, the revolving door spins both ways
: Arthur Delaney, “Big Bank Takeover: Report Blames Revolving Door for ‘Too Big to Fail,’ ” 11 May 2010,
www.huffingtonpost.com
.

59
On the mining front, former Massey chief operating officer
: Brad Johnson, “Don Blankenship’s Record of Profits Over Safety: ‘Coal Pays the Bills,’ ” 8 Apr. 2010,
www.thinkprogress.org
.

60
At the time of the Upper Big Branch accident he was
: Ibid.

61
And President Bush named Massey executive Richard Stickler
: Ibid.

62
Stickler had such a lousy safety record
: Ibid.

63
That’s what happened when Bush put Edwin Foulke
: Stephen Labaton, “OSHA Leaves Worker Safety in Hands of Industry,” 25 Apr. 2007,
www.nytimes.com
.

64
Earlier in his career, while serving as chairman
: Ibid.

65
Then there was Bush’s choice of Mary Sheila Gall
: “Mary Sheila Gall Named to Chair CPSC,” 20 Apr. 2001,
www.consumeraffairs.com
.

66
In her ten years on the commission
: Lizette Alvarez, “Consumer Product Safety Chief Sets Deadline to Resign,” 9 Aug. 2001,
www.nytimes.com
.

67
She even adopted a “Let them eat marbles” stance
: Hearing on the nomination of Mary Sheila Gall to chair the Consumer Product Safety Commission before the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, U.S. Senate, 25 Jul. 2001,
www.gpo.gov
.

68
And while I’m all for slapping warnings
: Matthew Robinson and Daniel Murphy,
Greed Is Good: Maximization and Elite Deviance in America
(Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2009), 94–95.

69
Thankfully, the Senate refused to confirm Gall
: Caroline E. Mayer, “Senate Panel Rejects Bush’s Choice for Consumer Job,” 3 Aug. 2001,
www.sfgate.com
.

70
Undeterred, Bush filled the slot with Harold Stratton
: Daphne Eviatar, “Toy Story,” 3 Jan. 2008,
www.thenation.com
.

71
Following the money once again
: Center for Responsive Politics, “Pharmaceuticals/ Health Products: Long-Term Contribution Trends,” 1990–2010,
www.opensecrets.org
.

72
In return, the Bush administration served up
: Marc Kaufman, “Former FDA Chief Illegally Held Stocks,” 17 Oct. 2006,
www.washingtonpost.com
.

73
And, if you want to see “overly cozy” run amok
: Charlie Savage, “Sex, Drug Use and Graft Cited in Interior Department,” 10 Sep. 2008,
www.nytimes.com
.

74
We saw how all those former Senate and House staffers
: Brian Beutler, “Do Baucus’ Ties to Health Care Industry Compromise His Reform Efforts?” 6 Jul. 2009,
www.talkingpointsmemo.com
.

75
Among those lobbying Baucus were two of his former chiefs of staff
: Dan Eggen and Kimberly Kindy, “Familiar Players in Health Bill Lobbying,” 6 Jul. 2009,
www.washingtonpost.com
.

76
And among those on his staff being lobbied
: Peter Dreier, “Citizens Confront WellPoint: Poster Child for Health Insurance Reform,” 22 Sep. 2009,
www.huffingtonpost.com
.

77
We got an unsettling glimpse of what this
: Sam Stein, “Dodd: Treasury Officials Insisted on Weakening Bonus Provision,” 2 Apr. 2009,
www.huffingtonpost.com
.

78
Think about that: Even after having been bailed out
: Congressional Oversight Panel, “The AIG Rescue, Its Impact on Markets, and the Government’s Exit Strategy,” 10 Jun. 2010,
www.cop.senate.gov
.

79
It’s the same kind of inside juice that allowed
: Raymond J. Learsy, “The Key Question No One Asked About Goldman’s Role in the AIG Bailout,” 20 Nov. 2009,
www.huffingtonpost.com
.