tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36073547881776453932011-04-21T11:00:55.729-07:00Dixonphotohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11532480628426751447noreply@blogger.comBlogger21100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3607354788177645393.post-34673089876234656932009-01-12T20:27:00.000-08:002009-01-12T21:15:14.150-08:00White collar crime seems to pay. At least for the privileged few. The number of crooks that get away with their crimes seems to rise exponentially with the money in their bank accounts. Madoff struts around in his suit as if he's someone important, and you know what? He is. He is because he owes FIFTY BILLION DOLLARS  to the investors he bilked. Why is he not in jail? Because with that kind of money comes influence. The kind of influence in the corridors of power that we little people can't see. The justice system is so slow and corrupted that by the time Madoff comes to trial, the millions he has will be hidden far away, and all the people he swindled will maybe see a few pennies on the dollar. If he does end up in the slammer, my bet is that it's a country club, and he won't have a cellmate named Bubba to hang out with when the lights go out. But one can always hope.<div><br /></div><div>That particular slice of hell is too good for the likes of George Bush and Dick Cheney, now making appearance after appearance justifying their myriad list of criminal acts of the past eight years. From orchestrating an illegal and unjustified war in the face of evidence to the contrary that they ignored, to the slaughter of tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis, to killing more Americans in Iraq than Osama bin Laden killed in NYC on 9/11 - from waterboarding and worse (with all the talk about waterboarding, we're done a great job ignoring the OTHER things the CIA did to the prisoners in Gitmo before the photos got out), to outing a CIA agent wife of a critic, Bush/Cheney sport a litany of crimes that they now glibly defend and try to justify. Today at his last "presidential" (I refuse to capitalize the word in the context of discussing Bush) news conference, W said he was "disappointed" that no WMDs were found. "What? What? What was that?!?" the press corps should have said. "You're 'disappointed' that you went to war on this issue, disappointed that you ordered the deaths of thousands of people and injured hundreds of thousands more - - and all you can say is that you were 'disappointed'??!! </div><div><br /></div><div>In that context, all I can even think to say, is that I am sad that this man was in charge of our country for the past eight years. Very sad.</div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/3607354788177645393-3467308987623465693?l=dixonphoto-pointofview.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Dixonphotohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11532480628426751447noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3607354788177645393.post-45895449569132934672009-01-10T07:43:00.000-08:002009-01-10T08:05:52.758-08:00I find it intriguing that as tens of thousands of people lose their life savings, investments and jobs around the world, as the auto industry stumbles and falls, as the airlines struggle, as banks fail, no one has noticed what the oil industry is up to. <div><br /></div><div>Exxxon (yes there a three X's there, I know - figure it out) was given a four and a half BILLION dollar gift by the Bush-appointed majority in the Supreme Court last fall when it reduced the award for the corporation's criminal actions involving the operation of and bogus cleanup of the Exxxon Valdez oil spill in 1989. The company also was recording record profits during the days of $4.00 a gallon gasoline - some $40 billion+ per quarter. Though those profits have fallen as the American public stopped taking trips, the executives, you can bet, are hard at work trying to figure out how to increase them again. </div><div><br /></div><div>One method is to cut production. So at a time when the stock market crash has cost each man, woman &amp; child (theoretically, of course) $14,000 minimum, when the deficit is soaring, prices falling due to deflation, unemployment is higher than it's been in decades (7.2% this week), and the governments around the world are strapped for ideas and tools to actually DO anything to stop the downward spiral, what does OPEC do? Cut production to drive up the price of oil. Now that's neighborly, don't you think?</div><div><br /></div><div>Instead, I have a novel idea. Actually, I heard it on BIll Meyer's talk show, but since no one else seems to be floating the idea, I thought I'd repeat it, if only to keep it alive. Why don't the oil companies chip in to bail out the auto industry? Why doesn't the government demand that they invest some of their amazing profits not into R &amp; D or exploration (no more "Drill, Baby Drill"), but instead support green initiatives and more fuel-efficient cars, if for no other reason that it will prolong the demise of the planet long enough for them to continue making billions. Let the oil companies feast on our greed - they already are - but make them contribute to the solutions we need as well.</div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/3607354788177645393-4589544956913293467?l=dixonphoto-pointofview.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Dixonphotohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11532480628426751447noreply@blogger.com1