The only difference between Bernie Madoff and these assholes is that Bernie was stupid enough to get caught.

Madoff ripped off RICH people...

http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-pfizer-20180108-story.html

The U.S. Drops Out of the Top 10 in Innovation Ranking

Score another one for Seoul while Silicon Valley slides.

The U.S. dropped out of the top 10 in the 2018 Bloomberg Innovation Index for the first time in the six years the gauge has been compiled. South Korea and Sweden retained their No. 1 and No. 2 rankings.

The index scores countries using seven criteria, including research and development spending and concentration of high-tech public companies.

more

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-22/south-korea-tops-global-innovation-ranking-again-as-u-s-falls

Oh yeah fools on Fox, the GOP and Trump voters say they believe but they don't really. They just use it as an excuse to feed our national wealth to the top riches capitalist heirs. Taking $5 Billion out of the economy and handing it to people who are already hoarding wealth, is recipe for another crash.

How much empirical evidence does one need to see to debunk this scam, at least in one's own mind?

They don't care who knows what they are doing. It is so all in-your-face, f#%k you very much.

So....never. A vicious circle jerk of lies, silence and deception. Did anyone not get that after Iraq??.

I do not recognize the place any longer - between the 40 year cash grab of trickle down BS, the evangelicals continuing to hold respect well beyond their station or what they have earned (scorn), and the dumbing down of EVERY level of society to beneath lowest common denominator levels (wouldn't want the morons to actually FEEL like what they are now would we?), all I see left is a hollowed out shell of a great idea and hideous execution.

America birthed secular self-governance to the world and in the 21st century has basically abandoned its own core. We ARE the shithole country, not the other way around...

It's all about how can I line my pockets with more money.

Month After Getting $3.5 Billion Tax Break From Trump, Bank of America Hikes Fees on Poorest Customers
Online checking accounts, popular with low-income customers, may now be off-limits to many who can't afford new fees
by Julia Conley, staff writer Published on Tuesday, January 23, 2018 by Common Dreams

Consumer advocates and banking customers are expressing outrage after an announcement by the Bank of America that it would begin charging fees to account-holders who maintain low balances.

The decision, announced Monday, comes a month after the Republican tax law gave the bank an expected $3.5 billion tax break, and less than a week after it posted $2.4 billion profits in the last quarter of 2017.

Critics argued that such news should garner at least as much attention as the bank's announcement last month that it would use some of the financial windfall to give its 145,000 employees a one-time bonus of $1,000 each—a relatively small portion of its tax savings.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210138990

Banks make more money on fees then they do on loans or investments.

a post on Kimberly Clark's similar reaction to the noted 'windfall' in tax savings. My husband was forced into retirement at Kimberly two years ago, low hanging fruit because of his salary (after 30 years on the job) and he was at the SS age to draw his benefits.

In any case, KC had been doing these restructuring programs for several years. Cut, cut, cut until the office staff was floating just above skeletal. This is particularly true now because the company is rumored to be looking for a buyout. They were on the recent Forbes list of 10 most likely companies with buyout potential, which means, of course, the guys at the top of the pyramid are looking for their platinum parachutes. This was the same scenario at Scott Paper Co. where stock prices were inflated, staff cut and then . . . buyout by no other than Kimberly Clark. Twenty years ago, a repeating cycle. Great for the executives and shareholders. Not so much for employees.

Pfizer is stepping back from their neuroscience division, thus the dismissal of 300 scientists. I think it's because they see more profit (as in huge profits) from 3 new cancer drugs they've developed, scheduled to reach the market in 2020. But the behavior is similar: cut staff and buy back stock, an artificial boost to stock prices, making shareholders happy with increased dividends. And then, party like it's the 1920s.

What links the two is money, money, money. And the Trumpster just threw these corporations a barrel full. The average worker? He/she gets a $1000 bonus, and then a pink slip.

Whoo-hoo! What a deal.

Self-evident is self-evident, if one has at least some background knowledge. I just think it should be noted that board members, and other highly-placed individuals are uniquely situated to create a bubble from which they benefit handsomely. Obscenely, even.

Raise the stock value while gaining ownership of more of it, cash in some huge bonus money and stock options, take the 8-figure dividend, and walk away from the mushroom cloud with a gigantic severance when it no longer works....if there is anything left.

I realize that total financial ruin is very unlikely, but crippling whatever company is treated this way is less so...and the mindset is the same. When one's worst case is walking away with enough money for 10 lifetimes, life must seem pretty good.

Artificially boost the stock then find buyers that will gut the company and sell off the pieces.

Mitt rMoney was a longtime advocate of this.

Wash, rinse, repeat

The argument made was that R & D is risky and capital intensive.

If a company is just going to be a licensing, manufacturing, and distrubition company then exorbitant profits are not justified.