Phil Gramm, Wendy Gramm, Enron, Energy Crisis, and CA

In December 2001, Public Citizen, the respected independent nonprofit research group, published this report on the key roles played by McCain's finance czar, Senator Phil Gramm and his wife, Enron board member Wendy, in the Enron energy swindle that caused California's devastating energy crisis in the first half of 2001.
Read this readable but detailed indictment of Bush, Enron, the Gramms, and the enabling GOP of deregulating the state wholesale energy industry and the commodities trading market.

Then think about what's happening today and which party is likelier to have your and your children's interests in mind.

Oh Say Can You See?

Some gleanings from The Shock Doctrine. I trust some of this will ring a bell?

Having staged his coup d'etat in Chile, which involved cutting government spending on domestic programs by 37% in two years, the loss of about 180,000 industrial jobs, an unemployment rate of 20%, and a new "living wage" for the people of which 74% went simply to buying bread (not bread and milk; just bread), Pinochet proceeded to phase 2.

He replaced the public school system with charter schools and a voucher program. That is, he privatized them.

He created a pay-as-you-go healthcare system. That is, he made it for-profit.

He privatized the kindergartens and cemeteries. Like we're privatizing schools and nursing homes.

And he privatized the Chilean social security system. Where've we heard that before?

All of this was part of Milton Friedman's prized totally free free-market system. "George W. Bush is usually credited with pioneering 'the ownership society," but in fact it was Pinochet's government, thirty years earlier, that first introduced the idea of "a nation of owners."

What he created was Enron-style "piranhas"--wildcat speculators--an obscenely wealthy top 10% of the population, and 45% of the population below the poverty line.