Multi-National Corporations

[alleycat]

On Thursday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) decided to take the next step toward realizing this goal by introducing a constitutional amendment to the U.S. Senate that would overturn the ruling which classified multi-national corporations as people and therefore entitled to the same rights as living, breathing, human individuals.

The Saving American Democracy Amendment states:

Corporations are not persons with constitutional rights equal to real people.
Corporations are subject to regulation by the people.
Corporations may not make campaign contributions.
Congress and states have the power to regulate campaign finances.

“There comes a time when an issue is so important that the only way to address it is by a constitutional amendment,” Sanders said. He had previously described the Citizen United ruling as “basically insane. Nobody that I know thinks that Exxon Mobil is a person,” Sanders said in November.

Sens. Tom Udall (D-NM) and Michael Bennet of (D-CO) have also introduced a similar constitutional amendment that would essentially defeat Citizens United by granting Congress and the states the authority to regulate the campaign finance system. Udall and Bennet hope that by emphasizing states’ rights, they’ll gain the support of a few Republicans.

Sanders is accompanied in his endeavor to restore fiscal sanity to the political system by Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL), who has introduced a companion measure in the U.S. House.

[ryoder]

It looks like this is on the standard platform for the socialist party of the US.
Socialist Party USA
Its the last item on the list.

"We oppose the court-created precedent of “corporate personhood” that illegitimately gives corporations rights that were intended for human beings", socialist party site.

[Lindagerr]

I am not a Socialist, I am not several other things too. Just because I agree on one item does not mean I am "drinking the kool aide" of an organization

[ryoder]

Nope it doesn't. I just take typical policy moves like this and see who is behind them and see if they are part of an overall trend.
Obama's recent campaign speeches include a lot of "fair share" comments and so does the socialist party and communist party sites.
If someone comes out in favor of increased taxes for the rich, punishment of MNCs, cap and trade, Kyoto protocol adherance, affirmative action, increased estate taxes, taking over of private utilities in the name of the public good, support for OWS, and some of the other socialist party's platform planks, then I think that person may be a socialist.
This is why I think Obama is a closeted socialist.

[skyfall123]

I'm not sure why there are people left in America other than lobbyiests, politicians and/or heads of corporations that feel that the money and influence used by corporations to buy politicians/political favor is good for this country.....yet it appears there are. Food for thought.

Below is written by David Korten

From the beginning of history, Empire’s rulers have maintained their power by sowing fear, mutual suspicion, and division to prevent those who bear the burdens of their rule from uniting against them. Currently, on the political right, anger is directed against government. On the political left, it is directed against Wall Street corporations.

Each blames the other for America’s decline and the economic distress of working families, thus diverting attention from the deeper truth. Corporate money, perks, and the revolving door between Congress and lobbying firms have corrupted the political process. As a consequence, Wall Street and Washington are both running out of control and united in the pursuit of agendas that grow the power and privilege of the few at the expense of the many.

Whether the blame lies more with Wall Street or with Washington is largely beside the point. The bottom line is a Wall Street–Washington axis that has stolen our money and country, denies us our rights, undermines national security, and threatens the future of all our children, irrespective of political orientation. Wall Street and Washington are both running out of control, united in the pursuit of agendas that grow the power and privilege of the few at the expense of the many.

Two events following the 2008 financial meltdown so focused attention on the power and dysfunction of the Wall Street-Washington axis that the establishment propaganda machine that keeps us divided came near losing control. They demonstrate the potential for a broad popular transpartisan political alliance.

One was the government bailout of Wall Street. Virtually no one outside of Wall Street was happy about government taking money from struggling taxpayers in order to give it to Wall Street bankers so they could reward themselves bonuses for crashing the economy.

The other was the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. the Federal Election Commission that gave corporations carte blanche to buy elections. Follow-up polls reported that the Supreme Court’s decision was opposed by 80 percent of Americans, including 76, 81, and 85 percent of Republicans, Independents and Democrats, respectively—a truly extraordinary consensus in this time of political division.

Divided We Fall: How the Left and Right Can Unite by David Korten

[ryoder]

I think that the unions have way too much power over the federal government too. The meltdown started with housing and was created by lenders selling mortgages to a new market of unqualified buyers created by Fannie and Freddie trying to social engineer poor economic performers in the lower middle class into homes the would ultimately decide to stop paying for.

[alleycat]

I think that the unions have way too much power over the federal government too. The meltdown started with housing and was created by lenders selling mortgages to a new market of unqualified buyers created by Fannie and Freddie trying to social engineer poor economic performers in the lower middle class into homes the would ultimately decide to stop paying for.

Yes the housing meltdown was created by lenders. Created by lenders. Who in the world created all of these mortages? Lenders!!!

Here is a link to NPR talking about the housing bubble created by giant lenders. Why did they do this? To make money off the little guy. These lenders have licenses to move their product, which would be mortages. These people at the top actually got awards for selling these bad mortages. Awards!!! These mortages where created from the global pool of money. It was considered a low risk, high return investment for these bankers. These investment are called mortage back securities.

390: Return To The Giant Pool of Money | This American Life

Tragic, just tragic!

The average American is now being blamed for this problem.

Ryan are you a trustfund baby or something along those lines? Because I just do not think you understand what in the world actually is going on inside of the American family at this point. People are losing there job, still. People are becoming homeless. Families cannot afford food. The food banks cannot keep up with the demand. The state that you live in has the largest homeless population in the country.

[ryoder]

From wikipedia.
The Federal National Mortgage Association (FNMA; OTCBB: FNMA), commonly known as Fannie Mae, was founded in 1938 during the Great Depression as part of the New Deal. It is a government-sponsored enterprise (GSE), though it has been a publicly traded company since 1968.[2] The corporation's purpose is to expand the secondary mortgage market by securitizing mortgages in the form of mortgage-backed securities (MBS),[3] allowing lenders to reinvest their assets into more lending and in effect increasing the number of lenders in the mortgage market by reducing the reliance on thrifts.[4

Fannie Mae - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So you see that the Gub-mint created the secondary mortgage market. They also set the underwriting standards for loans. So loan originators just have to make sure all the boxes are checked for Fannie and Freddie and they can originate a loan. They are then sold to Fannie or Freddie and enter the secondary market. Correct me if I am wrong on some of the details mortgage brokers, but that is how it works in a nutshell.

Back in the 1990s, the feds looked at the statistics and found that people who were doing well in the middle class tended to own homes. So, they decided that if they could get more people to own homes, more people would be doing well. To do that, they lowered the standards to qualify for a mortgage and lowered the money down to around 2% for an FHA insured loan. Back in the day, you had to have 20% down, but in the new world, 2% was sufficient.

So a lot of people flooded the market, drove up housing prices and created the housing bubble. The bubble burst and any houses bought in the 2006-2007 time frame became instantly worth much less. People who were able to pay their payments decided to do strategic defaults and just walk away. Some people who lost their jobs and wanted to sell the house to get out couldn't, so the banks allowed them to short sale and forgave a portion of the debt. Others like me just sucked it up and kept paying on a house that lost over 1/3 of the loan value.

I am not a trust fund kid.

[skyfall123]

So you see that the Gub-mint created the secondary mortgage market. They also set the underwriting standards for loans. So loan originators just have to make sure all the boxes are checked for Fannie and Freddie and they can originate a loan. They are then sold to Fannie or Freddie and enter the secondary market. Correct me if I am wrong on some of the details mortgage brokers, but that is how it works in a nutshell.

Your first paragraph taken from Wikipedia states about Fannie Mae [2] The corporation's purpose is to expand the secondary mortgage market by securitizing mortgages in the form of mortgage-backed securities.....then using your own words you now state that "the Gub -mint CREATED the secondary mortgage market.

The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission reported in 2011 that Fannie & Freddie "contributed to the crisis, but were not a primary cause." GSE mortgage securities essentially maintained their value throughout the crisis and did not contribute to the significant financial firm losses that were central to the financial crisis. The GSEs participated in the expansion of subprime and other risky mortgages, but they followed rather than led Wall Street and other lenders into subprime lending.

View report here http://fcic-static.law.stanford.edu/cdn_...usions.pdf (Fannie Mae discussed specifically p.25,26,27,28)

Subprime mortgage crisis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Waldorfteacher]

It is humorous to see the term socialist slung about in the pejorative so loosely when it does not refer to state ownership of the means of production. In the narrow definition, state owned oil fields, coal mines, steel plants and auto manufacturing all qualify as Socialism in the classical sense of the term. If we expand that definition to mean any government loan guarantee program, whether to a student, veteran, small business, home buyer, publicly traded corporation or otherwise it ought to be clear we are expanding the definition of Socialism beyond the classic economic meaning. As long as we are feeling free to revise the definition of Socialist & Socialism I think we should expand the definition to include anyone who has ever received a check from the government for anything including employment in any branch of government, participated in medicare, receives a Social Security check or has driven on a taxpayer funded road. By this expanded definition, we are all Socialists from the cradle to the grave.

Whether one has driven on a road before does not determine ones adherence to the ideology that corporations are not people in the constitutional sense. Sensible people can disagree but it's a tough sell that corporations are in any way, shape or form human beings. To spell that out for the activist judiciary that determined otherwise through a measure as drastic as a constitutional amendment seems sensible. In a Corprotocracy, corporations are people.