Category: money
Ha!…
In the United States, movie production is known to be dominated by major studios since the early 20th Century; before that, there was a period in which Edison’s Trust monopolized the industry. The music and television industries recently witnessed cases of media consolidation, with Sony Music Entertainment’s parent company merging their music division with Bertelsmann AG’s BMG to form Sony BMG and TimeWarner’s The WB and CBS Corp.’s UPN merging to form The CW. In the case of Sony BMG, there existed a “Big Five” (now “Big Four”) of major record companies, while The CW’s creation was an attempt to consolidate ratings and stand up to the “Big Four” of American network (terrestrial) television.
There may also be some large-scale owners in an industry that are not the causes of monopoly or oligopoly. Clear Channel Communications, especially since the Telecommunications Act of 1996, acquired many radio stations across the United States, and came to own more than 1,200 stations. However, the radio broadcasting industry in the United States and elsewhere can be regarded as oligopolistic regardless of the existence of such a player. Because radio stations are local in reach, each licensed a specific part of airwave by the FCC in a specific local area, any local market is served by a limited number of stations. In most countries, this system of licensing makes many markets local oligopolies. The similar market structure exists for television broadcasting, cable systems and newspaper industries, all of which are characterized by the existence of large-scale owners. Concentration of ownership is often found in these industries.
In the United States, data on ownership and market share of media companies is not held in the public domain. Academics, for example at MIT Media Lab and NYU, have struggled to find data that show reliably the concentration of media ownership.
On June 2, 2003, FCC, in a 3-2 vote under Chairman Michael Powell, approved new media ownership laws that removed many of the restrictions previously imposed to limit ownership of media within a local area. The changes were not, as is customarily done, made available to the public for a comment period.
Single-company ownership of media in a given market is now permitted up to 45% (formerly 35%, up from 25% in 1985) of that market.
Restrictions on newspaper and TV station ownership in the same market were removed.
All TV channels, magazines, newspapers, cable, and Internet services are now counted, weighted based on people’s average tendency to find news on that medium. At the same time, whether a channel actually contains news is no longer considered in counting the percentage of a medium owned by one owner.
Previous requirements for periodic review of license have been changed. Licenses are no longer reviewed for “public-interest” considerations.
- Labels: censorship, media, money, monopoly, television
Not all gift cards are redeemed,
which can be for a multitude of reasons.
Common reasons may include loss of the card,
time decay (expiration and fees),
personal uninterest in the store
that the card is accepted, complex
rules of redemption, and the attempt
of the recipient to save money for the giver.
It has been estimated that perhaps
10% of cards are not redeemed,
amounting to a gain for retailers
of about $8 billion in the US in 2006.
Gift cards may seem attractive but
they are just another marketing device
designed to drain you of your cash,
you are giving your money away
for free when you choose gift cards.
$$$$!!!! 8 Billion !!!!$$$$
By JULIE CRESWELL
Published: October 4, 2009
“For most of the 133 years since its founding in a small city in Wisconsin, the Simmons Bedding Company enjoyed an illustrious history.
Its recent history has been notable, too, but for a different reason.
Simmons says it will soon file for bankruptcy protection, as part of an agreement by its current owners to sell the company â the seventh time it has been sold in a little more than two decades â all after being owned for short periods by a parade of different investment groups, known as private equity firms, which try to buy undervalued companies, mostly with borrowed money.
For many of the companyâs investors, the sale will be a disaster. Its bondholders alone stand to lose more than $575 million. The companyâs downfall has also devastated employees like Noble Rogers, who worked for 22 years at Simmons, most of that time at a factory outside Atlanta. He is one of 1,000 employees â more than one-quarter of the work force â laid off last year.
But Thomas H. Lee Partners of Boston has not only escaped unscathed, it has made a profit. The investment firm, which bought Simmons in 2003, has pocketed around $77 million in profit, even as the companyâs fortunes have declined. THL collected hundreds of millions of dollars from the company in the form of special dividends. It also paid itself millions more in fees, first for buying the company, then for helping run it. Last year, the firm even gave itself a small raise.
Wall Street investment banks also cashed in. They collected millions for helping to arrange the takeovers and for selling the bonds that made those deals possible. All told, the various private equity owners have made around $750 million in profits from Simmons over the years.
How so many people could make so much money on a company that has been driven into bankruptcy is a tale of these financial times and an example of a growing phenomenon in corporate America.
Every step along the way, the buyers put Simmons deeper into debt. The financiers borrowed more and more money to pay ever higher prices for the company, enabling each previous owner to cash out profitably.
But the load weighed down an otherwise healthy company. Today, Simmons owes $1.3 billion, compared with just $164 million in 1991, when it began to become a Wall Street version of âFlip This House.â
In many ways, what private equity firms did at Simmons, and scores of other companies like it, mimicked the subprime mortgage boom. Fueled by easy money, not only from banks but also endowments and pension funds, buyout kings like THL upended the old order on Wall Street. It was, they said, the Golden Age of private equity â nothing less than a new era of capitalism.” (read more The New York Times)
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Now you see? The Mafia didn’t go extinct, they just went “legit” and moved to Wall Street where robbery and greed have been made legal.
- Labels: control, corporations, corruption, crime, greed, money
DESTROY
YOUR
CREDIT CARDS
NOW!
When the power of love
overcomes the love of power
the world will know peace
…..Sri Chinmoy Ghose…..
- Labels: arms trade, big brother, money, religion, war
EARLY WARNING SIGNS OF
FASCISM
Powerful and Continuing
NATIONALISM
DISTAIN FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
IDENTIFICATION OF ENEMIES/SCAPEGOATS
as a Unifying Cause
SUPREMACY OF THE MILITARY
RAMPANT SEXISM & RACISM
CONTROLLED MASS MEDIA
OBSESSION WITH NATIONAL SECURITY
RELIGION AND GOVERNMENT
are Intertwined
CORPORATE POWER IS PROTECTED
LABOR POWER IS SUPPRESSED
DISTAIN FOR INTELLECTUALS & THE ARTS
OBSESSION WITH CRIME & PUNISHMENT
RAMPANT CRONYISM & CORRUPTION
FRAUDULENT ELECTIONS
- Labels: corporations, government, greed, money, now, power
I don’t know about you but
I don’t trust insurance companies to
support my best interests to begin with.
I certainly don’t trust insurance companies
to provide for my health care needs in a “non-profit” way.
You know what H.M.O. stands for don’t you?
Heartless
Moneymaking
Organization
The human spirit will thrive with co-operation; Far more than with competition. So why is our society based upon competition and not co-operation?
The current economic system is based upon the masses competing with each-other for limited resources for one reason; to keep them enslaved to the system. In addition to bondage our rulers choose to keep us, in the majority, impoverished slaves. The reality is the masses have had to work harder and have had less than the few at the top since the days of the pyramids.
Economics is simply the latest word for a pyramid shaped slavery control system. Pyramid schemes and structures favor the few and control, enslave and rip off the masses. They have been using the same structure for thousands of years.
Why do you think there is a pyramid on our money with the top cut off. Money is the control system and it states their formula right in plain view for all to see.
It shows the elite at the top, and the masses at the bottom. The slave masters and the slaves.
- Labels: federal reserve, greed, materialism, money, slavery
Let me get this straight…….
we do all the work…….
we buy all the products…….
and they get the lions share of the profit?
That’s why we need labor unions.
Make the people rich……
that will save the economy…….really.
SiCKO is a 2007 documentary film by American film maker Michael Moore. The film investigates the American health care system, focusing on its health insurance and pharmaceutical industry. The film compares the for-profit, non-universal U.S. system with the non-profit universal health care systems of Canada, the United Kingdom, France and Cuba.
Sicko opened to positive reviews, but also generated criticism and controversy. Some policy specialists have praised the film while others have criticized the film for its positive portrayal of the publicly funded health systems of Canada, the United Kingdom and Cuba, and for its negative portrayal of the health care system in the United States.
In his first television interview since leaving the health insurance industry, Wendell Potter tells Bill Moyers why he left his successful career as the head of Public Relations for CIGNA, one of the nation’s largest insurers, and decided to speak out against the industry. “I didn’t intend to [speak out], until it became really clear to me that the industry is resorting to the same tactics they’ve used over the years.
- Labels: big brother, control, corporations, greed, money, profit
What is the amount
of money in “Gift Cards”
that went unredeemed last year?
$Eight Billion (8,000,000,000) Dollars!
Okay, so that’s FREE money for corporations?
I think I’ll give CASH.
They don’t pay any taxes……..they pass the taxes on to you.
It started with price fixing……..then it evolved into supply manipulation.
And then they get tax breaks……..for paying no taxes.
- Labels: big brother, economy, greed, money
Union leaders at Coca-Cola’s Colombian bottling plants have been murdered. Hundreds of other Coke workers have been tortured, kidnapped and/or illegally detained by violent paramilitaries, often working closely with plant managements.
Aspartame is the dangerous artificial sweetner used in Diet Coke. An examination of Aspartame, its history and its effects, is enough to shock anyone into really looking at their food labels next time they shop. Aspartame is a toxic food that came into the world as an investment by Donald Rumsfeld, while ignoring the deadly effects the tests showed. Reading all the stuff about aspartame could make your head explode. But what convinced me that aspartame is not safe are not just the studies that have found its link to cancer but also the efforts of Donald Rumsfield and Searle/Monsanto in ramming this product down our throats. Monsanto, as you know, is the world’s leading producer of genetically modified products – another innovation that many are convinced has already wrought havoc on human life and the ecosystem – and uses not just money and influence but also threat and intimidation on those who go against it, as a Vanity Fair investigative report makes clear. Indeed, Monsanto’s track record alone is enough to convince me that this product can kill.
The Coca-Cola Company has recently come under fire by the Food and Drug Administration for its reluctance to disclose exactly what the “Plus” in Diet Coke Plus really means. For starters, the FDA isn’t exactly thrilled with the concept of fortifying an unhealthy snack drink. Couple that with the fact that the amount of vitamins and minerals added to Diet Coke Plus remains somewhat vague, and it becomes clear why the FDA deemed it appropriate to step in.
Residents living around Coca-Cola’s bottling plant in Kala Dera, near Jaipur in Rajasthan, India marched and rallied demanding the closure of the bottling plant. Nearly 60 villages surrounding Coca-Cola’s bottling plant in Kala Dera have complained of severe water shortages since the bottling plant began operations in the area.
The Coca-Cola company is also the target of intense community campaigns in Mehdiganj and Kala Dera in India for creating water shortages and pollution. The company was forced to agree to an assessment of its bottling operations in India as a result of a sustained international campaign. The assessment, released in January 2008, was a damning indictment of Coca-Cola’s water management practices in India. The assessment recommends that Coca-Cola shut down its bottling plant in Kala Dera because the plant contributes significantly to water shortages in the area.
The council of Colombian capital Bogota fined the local unit of Mexico-based soft-drink bottler Coca-Cola Femsa SA (KOF) 201 million Colombian pesos, or about $110,000, for dumping industrial waste waters in marshes located in the city’s outskirts…The council’s environment secretary’s office said Femsa had been polluting the wetlands with industrial waste waters since 2006………(excerpts from killercoke.org)
This is a list of Coca-Cola products.
Everything I say…….is a lie…….Oberon.
In the counsels of Government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the Military Industrial Complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together.
………..Dwight D. Eisenhower………..
American policies are being driven by the military-industrial complex President Eisenhower warned us about……corporate influence steers this ship of state……but I have faith that we have started the journey of change with our votes yesterday. A world of change will come when we realize the truth……we are all slaves to the armament-energy-banking-pharma-terrorists.
Yes…….there are other terrorists too, those who would attempt to change the world by throwing bombs……but that is not change, that is only destruction…..they are just as culpable as those who wreak destruction through power and money.
Terrorism is the war of the poor……and war is the terrorism of the rich…….Sir Peter Ustinov.