Money Well Spent: 64 Percent of Races Chamber Helped Won; At Least 21 Incumbent Democrats Defeated.posted by ericb at 1:48 PM on November 4, 2010 [4 favorites]
Rove Groups, U.S. Chamber Build Winning Record in Elections.
Report: Rove-linked Group Funded by Wall Streeters.
Outside Independent Conservative Groups Made the Difference for Some Republicans.
Republicans’ revolution fades in Massachusetts.And ... for 2012: Democrats say hopes rise of beating Brown.
Republicans can’t crack Mass. delegation.
Turnout told tale of Tuesday’s Democratic sweep.
$176.5 million has come from non-party-committee conservative organizations, through Wednesday. That compares to $81.6 million from non-party-committee liberal organizations. In four U.S. Senate races, outside groups have spent more than the candidates themselves through mid-October.Thus far, Republicans and conservative groups have taken much more advantage of the Citizens United ruling. I don't think it should surprise anybody that large corporations have much more money to spend than labor unions.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce ($34 million), American Action Network ($22.1 million), the Karl Rove-backed American Crossroads ($19.9 million) and Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies ($16.2 million) and ranked one, two, three and four among outside organizations spending money on independent expenditures, electioneering communications and other political communication costs through Wednesday. All are overtly conservative organizations.
Now, most people know what plutocracy is: the rule of the rich, political power controlled by the wealthy. Plutocracy is not an American word and wasn’t meant to become an American phenomenon – some of our founders deplored what they called “the veneration of wealth.” But plutocracy is here, and a pumped up Citigroup even boasted of coining a variation on the word— “plutonomy”, which describes an economic system where the privileged few make sure the rich get richer and that government helps them do it. Five years ago Citigroup decided the time had come to “bang the drum on plutonomy.”
And bang they did. Here are some excerpts from the document “Revisiting Plutonomy;”
“Asset booms, a rising profit share and favorable treatment by
market-friendly governments have allowed the rich to prosper… [and] take an increasing share of income and wealth over the last 20 years.”
“…the top 10%, particularly the top 1% of the United States –
the plutonomists in our parlance – have benefitted disproportionately from the recent productivity surged in the US… [and] from globalization and the productivity boom, at the relative expense of labor.”
“… [and they] are likely to get even wealthier in the coming years. Because the dynamics of plutonomy are still intact.”
The electorate on Tuesday was older and whiter than the presidential election cycle electorate in 2008, which poses challenges for Republicans, who have not significantly broadened their vote and are relying on rural, older voters for their majority. Indeed, exit poll data shows that the GOP is still struggling to appeal to young voters, as well as black and Hispanic voters.posted by TheophileEscargot at 12:01 AM on November 5, 2010 [2 favorites]
Exit polls show that white voters represented the vast majority of the electorate this cycle, casting 78% of the votes, 60% of which went to the Republican Party. However, among other voters, the Republican Party did poorly: 90% African-Americans voted for Democrats, as did 64% of Latinos and 56% of Asians.
Young voters showed up in far fewer numbers this year than when Barack Obama was up for election in 2008. Voters between 18 and 29 years old represented only 9% of the electorate this year, compared to 18% in the 2008 election. The 18-29 demographic was the only age group measured by CNN’s exit polling to be won by Democrats: 57% of this group voted Democrat, as opposed to only 40% for Republicans.
Republicans struggled with lower-income voters but managed to dominate the middle and upper classes. Exit polls show that voters making less than $50k voted for Democrats by an 11 point margin, but those making between $50k and $100k voted for Republicans by a 10 point margin. $100k+ earners voted for Republicans by nearly 20 points.
Recognition of the falsity of material wealth as the standard of success goes hand in hand with the abandonment of the false belief that public office and high political position are to be valued only by the standards of pride of place and personal profit; and there must be an end to a conduct in banking and in business which too often has given to a sacred trust the likeness of callous and selfish wrongdoing. Small wonder that confidence languishes, for it thrives only on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection, on unselfish performance; without them it cannot live.-- Franklin Delano Roosevelt, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1933
Restoration calls, however, not for changes in ethics alone. This Nation asks for action, and action now.
Our greatest primary task is to put people to work. This is no unsolvable problem if we face it wisely and courageously. It can be accomplished in part by direct recruiting by the Government itself, treating the task as we would treat the emergency of a war, but at the same time, through this employment, accomplishing greatly needed projects to stimulate and reorganize the use of our natural resources.
Finally, in our progress toward a resumption of work we require two safeguards against a return of the evils of the old order; there must be a strict supervision of all banking and credits and investments; there must be an end to speculation with other people’s money, and there must be provision for an adequate but sound currency.Obama's biggest mistake was that he tried to work with the very causes of this economic downfall. FDR was clear that he would not -- that they had lost the trust of this nation.
For months, companies have been sitting on the sidelines with record piles of cash, too nervous to spend. Now they're starting to deploy some of that money - not to hire workers or build factories, but to prop up their share prices.Regardless of motive, it shows a fundamental disconnect between Trickle Down theory and reality. The money is there, but they're not using it. Tax Cuts as the solution ain't gonna fix things. We've got the Paradox of thrift happening, and this means that the "investor of last resort" NEEDS to step in, and unfortunately, we're not, because we too chicken shit of the right-wing screaming "COMMIES!"
Sitting on these unprecedented levels of cash, U.S. companies are buying back their own stock in droves. So far this year, firms have announced they will purchase $273 billion of their own shares, more than five times as much compared with this time last year, according to Birinyi Associates, a stock market research firm. But the rise in buybacks signals that many companies are still hesitant to spend their cash on the job-generating activities that could produce economic growth.
Some companies are buying back shares partly because they don't want to invest in developing new products or services while consumer demand remains weak, analysts said.
"They don't know what they want to do with all the cash they're sitting on," said Zachary Karabell, president of RiverTwice Research.
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posted by Decani at 1:29 PM on November 4, 2010 [26 favorites]