Quote: "Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it". - Thomas Jefferson.
Are we disconnecting ourselves into oblivion? Is there a connection between the swallows who build a nest in my boat, the Amazon rain forest, cloned meat, antibiotics, and public health care for all, and why does it matter? For the answer, read the transcript.
Bumper Music: What Planet You On, Bodyrox.
Bumper Music: The Mail Must Go Through, Larry Groce & The Disneyland Children's Sing Along Chorus (clip).
Bill Keller, a guest yesterday. said he got some of the most hateful and vitriolic emails afterwards. And yet the late David Thibault, with whom Thom had great debates, was grateful for listeners help and emails.
Article: Sink Schumer’s dangerous ‘Shareholder Bill of Rights’: It’s micromanaging madness By John Berlau.
Guest: Thom challenges John Berlau, Director of the Center for Investors and Entrepreneurs at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, about the proposed Shareholder Bill of Rights. Does the proposed shareholder's bill of rights offer investors protection or is it micromanaging the madness of Wall Street? It would make it illegal for the CEO of a public company to also serve as the chairman of its board. It would make it illegal for corporations to own corporations or to do more than one thing. The primary purpose should be to contribute to the public good. Take us back to the 1920s. He thinks the market place should decide. Thom said there is no market place, we go to government and get special benefits. Arbiter of the public good? It used to be the secretary of state of the state. Benzene.
Bumper Music: Shake It Up, The Cars.
Article: Berlusconi entertained prostitutes at his home: Report.
Article: Inside The Great American Bubble Machine. Matt Taibbi on how Goldman Sachs has engineered every major market manipulation since the Great Depression.
Article: Goldman executives sold $700m of stock By Greg Farrell.
Article: Goldman Sachs earnings easily surpass expectations By Stephen Bernard.
No corporation doing business in this state shall pay or contribute, or offer consent or agree to pay or contribute, directly or indirectly, any money, property, free service of its officers or employees or thing of value to any political party, organization, committee or individual for any political purpose whatsoever, or for the purpose of influencing legislation of any kind, or to promote or defeat the candidacy of any person for nomination, appointment or election to any political office.
Penalty: any officer, employee, agent or attorney or other representative of any corporation, acting for and in behalf of such corporation who shall violate this act shall be punished upon conviction by a fine of not less than 100 nor more than 5,000 dollars and by imprisonment in the state prison for a period of not less than one nor more than five years.
Old Wisconsin Law.
Bumper Music: For What It's Worth, Buffalo Springfield (video).
Quote: "If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered... I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Thomas Jefferson.
We need a complete rethink of the corporate form and of trade policies. Nothing radical like Karl Marx, but going back to the vision of the founders, excluding slavery. There were no dynasties from the founders, that started with the robber barons. Rant.
Clip:
"That very word freedom, in itself and of necessity, suggests freedom from some restraining power. In 1776 we sought freedom from the tyranny of a political autocracy - from the eighteenth-century royalists who held special privileges from the crown...
But since that struggle, man's inventive genius released new forces in our land, forces which reordered the lives of our people. The age of machinery, of railroads; of steam and electricity; the telegraph and the radio; mass production, mass distribution - all of these combined to bring forward a new civilization and with it a problem for those who sought to remain free.
"For out of this modern civilization economic royalists carved new dynasties. New kingdoms were built upon concentration of control over material things. Through new uses of corporations and banks and securities, new machinery of industry and agriculture, of labor and capital - all undreamed of by the Fathers - the whole structure of modern life was impressed into this royal service...
"Private enterprise, indeed, became too private. It became privileged enterprise, not free enterprise...
These economic royalists complain that we seek to overthrow the institutions of America. What they really complain of is that we seek to take away their power. Our allegiance to American institutions requires the overthrow of this kind of power. In vain they seek to hide behind the flag and the Constitution. But in their blindness they forget what the flag and the Constitution stand for. Now, as always, they stand for democracy, not tyranny; for freedom, not subjection; and against a dictatorship by mob rule and the over-privileged alike
".
Franklin D. Roosevelt, 27 June 1936, "A Rendezvous With Destiny", Speech to the Democratic National Convention, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Quote: "When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.
"
Declaration of Independence.
Article: Obama Drinks Friedman’s Kool-Aid by Thom Hartmann.
Article: Is Another Fix In Place on the Siegelman Case? By RogerShuler.
Guest: Former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman. Update on his case. For the story so far, please see the transcripts from April 29, May 08, June 17 and the show notes for 08 July '08, 25 July '08, 30 July '08, 29 August '08, 30 September '08, 19 November '08, 01 December '08, 09 December '08, 27 January '08, 01 April '09, 22 April '09, 6 May '09, 15 May '09 and 30 Jun '09. Alabama senator Jeff Sessions questioning the integrity of Sotomayor. Thom read Siegelman's email yesterday, the fix is in to keep Leura Canary prosecutor. That's the talk. He heard it from a senator. Preaching. Only 7 of the federal attorneys have been replaced. We voted for change, not to keep Bush/Rove attorneys. Deal to back off Sotomayor? He is slightly encouraged that Holder is outraged, IG report about torture by CIA, possible assassination. There are still Bush appointees in the Department of Justice. Call Congress - summary.
Is it possible to build a fully-staffed, world-class business on the resources you have, not the resources you WISH you had? YES!
Guest: Richard Hooker, author of "Shoestring Venture: The Startup Bible". It is not the worst time to start businesses. Thom's best ones started during recessions, when fat cats are disintegrating or too slow. The bullies stop looking out for, squashing competitors, or are in panic to service debt. hey stop innovating, leaving field wide open. What is unique about this recession, major companies are trying to use the entrepreneurship of customers, like Microsoft making a language open source, iPhone and Twitter API. They let others take the risk. Consumers change the way they think, buy. People are buying cheaper stuff. In their book, they offshore and outsource. Build virtual organizations. If you do the bookkeeping, you are not doing business. Thom's bookkeeper is in Atlanta, has been with Thom since '83. Thom says outsourcing is dumb, confidential information is in the hands of somebody outside of US law, no recourse if problems. That is a trade off. Focus on what you do best. He has everyone have Twitter for communications - outsourcing. Guide to finding resources available for free like software.
He took calls. Information wants to be free. The quickest way to build buzz is to give it away. Thom said the good and the persistent succeed. People think price = value, so don't undercut. Think of yourself as the brand of the business. Competing with bigger businesses. Subdivide the market, look at what is done worst by competition, or knock at every door, look at other markets. Big competitors will work on large chunk, lowest common denominator, but there will be small pieces for independents because it is too much trouble for them. Go for niches. Start with finding out if there is a market. Do not talk to suppliers first.
Bumper Music: Hold On, KT Tunstall (video).
Bumper Music: You're the Voice, Heart (video).
Bumper Music: Democracy is coming to the USA, Leonard Cohen.
Member of the day is "West" who wins a copy of "Threshold" (when it is out) for:
Thom,
I have little doubt that I will never hear another talk show host correctly use the term “Precautionary Principle” on the air. This is a term that could only come out of the EU, where they actually care about their people. See the academic work of Cristina Ruden for more insight.
Bumper Music: Democracy is coming to the USA, Leonard Cohen.
