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applegrove

(118,683 posts) Wed Mar 6, 2013, 07:32 PM Mar 2013

"Billionaire Spreads His Money Far and Wide to Privatize Social Security"

Billionaire Spreads His Money Far and Wide to Privatize Social Security

By Thom Hartmann at AlterNet

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/billionaire-spreads-his-money-far-and-wide-privatize-social-security

"SNIP...............................................

Say hello to Pete Peterson.

Petersen is a Wall Street billionaire, who, according to The Center for Media and Democracy’s SourceWatch.Org, almost exclusively uses his wealth to back numerous organizations and public relations campaigns whose primary goals are to slash government funding to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

According to SourceWatch’s PetersonPyramid.org, in 2007, after making a fortune off of the public offering of a Wall Street private equity firm, Peterson pledged to spend a staggering $1 billion of his personal wealth to “fix America’s key fiscal-sustainability problems.”

A vast portion of that $1 billion is going to a shadowy astroturf supergroup campaign known as “The Campaign to Fix the Debt”. But don’t let the fairly innocuous title fool you.

As SourceWatch’s PetersonPyramid.org points out, in reality, the “Campaign to Fix the Debt” is just the latest effort by Peterson and a bunch of his billionaire friends and corporate cronies to cut away at Social Security and Medicare, all in the name of fixing America’s “debt problem”.

...............................................SNIP"

5 replies

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Highlight:

"Billionaire Spreads His Money Far and Wide to Privatize Social Security" (Original Post) applegrove Mar 2013 OP

Is Campaign to Fix the Debt the organization Laurian Mar 2013 #1

America's debt problems are due to Mr. Peterson and his ilk and Trailrider1951 Mar 2013 #2

Peterson is pure evil. n/t duffyduff Mar 2013 #3

If he's so rich, why isn't he smart??!? lastlib Mar 2013 #4

Part of the game involves accumulating as much wealth as possible. Snarkoleptic Mar 2013 #5

Laurian

(2,593 posts)

1. Is Campaign to Fix the Debt the organization

Reply to applegrove (Original post)

Wed Mar 6, 2013, 08:22 PM

Mar 2013

Ed Rendell is involved with? David Schuster has been trying to get MSNBC to disclose the association every time Rendell is on to spout his "balanced" bullshit. I haven't seen any disclosure yet, though.

Trailrider1951

(3,414 posts)

2. America's debt problems are due to Mr. Peterson and his ilk and

Reply to applegrove (Original post)

Wed Mar 6, 2013, 09:18 PM

Mar 2013

their multi-national corporations not paying their fair share of taxes, and to said corporations shipping all the jobs to whatever place offers them the most slave-like labor. Fuck Mr. Peterson and his ilk, corporations included. Social Security is OUR money, not thiers!

duffyduff

(3,251 posts)

3. Peterson is pure evil. n/t

Reply to applegrove (Original post)

Wed Mar 6, 2013, 09:19 PM

Mar 2013

lastlib

(23,247 posts)

4. If he's so rich, why isn't he smart??!?

Reply to applegrove (Original post)

Wed Mar 6, 2013, 09:32 PM

Mar 2013

The rest of us learned in 2008, in the Great Recession, what would happen to people's retirement savings if we put them in the hands of the Wall Street vultures. It would put us in the poorhouse, while the vultures walked away with the fat fees, leaving us at the mercy of the corporate masters--retirement would be a pipe dream for the vast majority. Few people have the skills and the knowledge needed (to say nothing of the dispassionate objectivity) to manage their own investment portfolios; we would literally be at the mercy of the Wall Street masters. I for one do not wish to sell my soul to them. This guy, with his vast personal fortune, cannot possibly empathize with the average working person, so he couldn't understand that what may be an insignificant risk to him is virtually life or death to you or me.

Snarkoleptic

(5,997 posts)

5. Part of the game involves accumulating as much wealth as possible.

Reply to lastlib (Reply #4)

Wed Mar 6, 2013, 10:28 PM

Mar 2013

Another part of the game is keeping others from doing the same.

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