Well, there's business, and then there's business. If you're small to medium-sized business who makes, repairs, grows stuff, etc., the Republican establishment considers you a sucker. If you're big and mainly involved in transferring wealth, they're all over being pro-you. Henry Ford summed up the difference:
"A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business."
Actually, these days, many companies make nothing. In 2024, the finance, insurance, real estate, rental, and leasing industry contributed the highest amount of value to the GDP of the U.S. at 21.2 percent. Google, May 13, 2025.
How about health care industry, including nursing homes, definitely big business.
Rick Scott made a fortune defrauding Medicare, but Blue Cross paid the fine..
BTW it seems that only upstart startup CEO's are even charged with a crime. CEO's of international corporations get bonuses for their crimes. Like Union Carbide, now part of DOW.
Seems that the cause of death for large corporation execs and troublesome government officials is suicide and accidents
Rick Scott was supposed to be the fall guy for the Frist family. Most of my cases involved Columbia Medical Centers, controlled by the Frist family, HCA Inc. (Hospital Corporation of America), the largest for-profit hospital chain in the country, which was founded by then Sen. Bill Frist’s father and brother. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Frist
By rights, all involved should hve been charged criminally, but none were. At the time, Bill Frist was senate majority leader. HCA kept two sets of books and fraudulently overbilled the government. The deal meant that HCA agreed to pay the government $631 million for its lucrative scams — which, on top of previous fines, brought the total government penalties against the health-care conglomerate to a whopping $1.7 billion, the largest fraud settlement in history,
The deal also meant that HCA continued to participate in Medicare. And, as part of the Bushies’ deal shutting down what Deputy Assistant FBI Director Thomas Kubic called “one of the FBI’s highest-priority white-collar crime investigations,” no criminal charges were brought against the top HCA execs who presided over the illegal bilking of federal programs designed to aid the poor — and that includes Senator Frist’s brother, Thomas, HCA’s former CEO (and current director), who’s been described by Forbes magazine as “one of the richest men in America,” with a personal fortune estimated at close to $2 billion.
So this was a Bush era grift. Looks like the reason that billionaires don't go to prison is because they are billionaires, only millionaires go to prison. if even that. SBF, Bernie Madoff, who ran a massive Ponzi scheme, and Michael Milken, who was convicted of securities fraud. Other examples include Raj Rajaratnam, convicted of insider trading, and Elizabeth Holmes, founder of Theranos, who was convicted of fraud.
And they were prosecuted because they forked the wrong people. If their victims were hapless Joe Six Pack, they would still be enjoying their ill gotten gains.
Now is our moment—take action against this harmful government. They are:
• Covering up a pedophile ring.
• Ignoring court orders.
• Spreading corruption.
The poor, the needy, and children are being abused—by our government. Healthcare, already a broken system, was canceled for 13 million. Take to the streets!
We must protest outright crooks and the pedophiles. They will start shooting us. Untrained ICE agents will shoot us. Protest until we go down or we oust these tyrants.
I made 54 protest signs to aid protest groups. I will make many more to share. You will see something different in these signs! Help yourself to this second batch, and share them as far as you can.
It is time for city and county officials to block the entrance to ICE concentration camps and refuse to allow them to block their entrance. Trump is succeeding because no one is physically obstructing him. Legal maneuvers are a waste of time, in some cases the courts are Trump humpers and where not, he and ICE ignore the courts. And SCOTUS, they long ago went over to the dark side, with the appointment of Roberts, Alito and Thomas.
I am aware that Trump is ready to declare Martial Law and just wants and excuse, he has already flexed that muscle activating the California Guard and the Marines.
The question is do we sit by and let him turn this nation into a replica of NAZI Germany or Putin's Russia, one piece at a time, or do we come together and rush the regime all at one time.
Scary, but if we sit by and let him boil the frog or do we make a mad rush and stop him now, The police assets of the DoJ and the DoD, are not enough to tackle an outraged ctizenry, realizing that Trump has unpaid auxillaries like the various militia, Aryan brotherhood, 3% ters,, Proud Boys,KKK, etc.
So do we acquiesce in our own enslavement or do we fight back now. There is no struggle without casualties.
Is there comfort, safey, security in slavery? Well, yes for some, like the house slave Stephen in Django Unchained.
There were black overseers and drivers on antebellum Southern plantations, though they held different positions of authority and responsibility than white overseers. While white overseers were hired by the plantation owner to manage the overall operation, black drivers were slaves appointed to oversee the work of other slaves in the fields.
Alas, too many unions like the Teamsters went over to the dark side,and there was a counter movement within the UAW to back Trump.
Historically the unions have been racist. In reaction to the great migration, where black workers from the south, mostly Mississippi,flooded into the great lakes states, in response to massive recruitment by manufacturers for cheap labor,
That sentiment has not disappeared, and has been amplified by Clintons NAFTA and GATT.
The blue collar vote has all but disappeared and is disappearing. The surviving unions are AFGE and SEIU, Culinary Workers Union and the hospitality workers unions.
Teamsters I fear are a lost cause, they spent all day in a truck tuned into Alex Jones, Joe Rogan and hate radio.
Now if George Soros, and one of the five progressive or liberal billionaires would by out Sinclair, Cox Media or iHeart we might have progressive radio and TV again.
True - but we need to work on the real workers in those Unions - especially as blue collar workers find the real incomes are shrinking with no Trumpy efforts to change.
Keep repeating to people: NONE OF THIS HAD TO HAPPEN!
Every time the Democrats get a hold on the economy as did the previous Biden Administration, along comes a false prophet trying to sell people on false profits.
True enough eggs went down---while rent and every other damn big expense went up more than 10%. This is just the beginning. A grocery item I paid $4.50 for just went up $.50. That is more than 11% with no tariff.
It's BS price gouging by the retailers that will be added to the "TRump tariffs". In a few months, we are going to be asking "how you like him now?". We must remind the Cult that NONE OF THIS HAD TO HAPPEN!
The nature of "business" has changed. The Dictionary of Occupoational Titles last published by DOL is now obsolite, because jobs have radically changed.
Surely trickle down theory was pure bullshit. Unfortunately it still is taught is some business schools and lives as folklore in Republican circles and in the media. Tax cuts for the wealthy only benefit some of the rich.
I come from a long line of petit bourgeois shop keepers. Now virtually none. I do have a second cousin who owns stores in the Virgin Islands, but most of my friends and relatives my age or younger are academics or professionals. In academia, tenure is being phased out, so in the future these jobs will mostly be "adjunct." Thom says 45% of us are middle class. I bet most are not "employees" in the traditional sense.
According to Google, the number of gig workers varies based on how "gig work" is defined, but it's estimated to be between 57 million and 78.4 million, according to several business and economic publications. This represents roughly 36% of the US workforce, according to TeamStage. Some studies suggest that over half the US workforce could be participating in the gig economy by 2027.
Democratic politicians need to confront this reality. Most gig workers allege that local regulations that require licensing fees or stuff like code enforcement are impediments to competition. These are state matters. Many of these laws were established to protect "haves" like unions to keep out little guys.
Even in Baghdad By the Sea, where we have no state income tax, workers gripe about local restrictions and Dems are identified as the source. Dems need to show that they support the little guy.
Of course the Republicans are the party of business, as in dirty business; as in giving you the business; as in bad for business; as in none of your business.
When the parties unite to play keepaway ball of universal healthcare that results in deaths and over a half million citizens bankrupted through complete transfer of their wealth to a few aristocratic "health care" ruling class elites, remember the saying common in the gangster mob: "It's just business."
But it is hardly the business of just one party, Tom. Neither are "representatives" supporting a genocide that over 90% of citizens vehemently oppose. It is time to demand governance and shun those who try to deflect that into partisan stooging.
Quoting Reagan (“there you go again”) doesn’t help your case. And with allies like current Democratic Party”leadership”, who needs enemies? He needn’t chime in here, but I’m confident Mr. Hartmann would agree with me.
Perhaps, but the current makeup of all three government branches leads me to believe that Democratic defense of democracy has been less than successful.
O,Captain. My Captain, the great refrain, Republicans , where we only care about nobody else but themselves. It really is the Republicans who have always hurt our democracy. We, need a plan, now! It’s them not us. Thanks, Captain! You know that too.
Well, there's business, and then there's business. If you're small to medium-sized business who makes, repairs, grows stuff, etc., the Republican establishment considers you a sucker. If you're big and mainly involved in transferring wealth, they're all over being pro-you. Henry Ford summed up the difference:
"A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business."
Republicans love poor businesses.
Actually, these days, many companies make nothing. In 2024, the finance, insurance, real estate, rental, and leasing industry contributed the highest amount of value to the GDP of the U.S. at 21.2 percent. Google, May 13, 2025.
How about health care industry, including nursing homes, definitely big business.
Rick Scott made a fortune defrauding Medicare, but Blue Cross paid the fine..
BTW it seems that only upstart startup CEO's are even charged with a crime. CEO's of international corporations get bonuses for their crimes. Like Union Carbide, now part of DOW.
Seems that the cause of death for large corporation execs and troublesome government officials is suicide and accidents
Blue Cross didn't pay the fine.
Rick Scott was supposed to be the fall guy for the Frist family. Most of my cases involved Columbia Medical Centers, controlled by the Frist family, HCA Inc. (Hospital Corporation of America), the largest for-profit hospital chain in the country, which was founded by then Sen. Bill Frist’s father and brother. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Frist
By rights, all involved should hve been charged criminally, but none were. At the time, Bill Frist was senate majority leader. HCA kept two sets of books and fraudulently overbilled the government. The deal meant that HCA agreed to pay the government $631 million for its lucrative scams — which, on top of previous fines, brought the total government penalties against the health-care conglomerate to a whopping $1.7 billion, the largest fraud settlement in history,
https://pnhp.org/news/the-bad-doctor-bill-frists-long-record-of-corporate-vices/
The deal also meant that HCA continued to participate in Medicare. And, as part of the Bushies’ deal shutting down what Deputy Assistant FBI Director Thomas Kubic called “one of the FBI’s highest-priority white-collar crime investigations,” no criminal charges were brought against the top HCA execs who presided over the illegal bilking of federal programs designed to aid the poor — and that includes Senator Frist’s brother, Thomas, HCA’s former CEO (and current director), who’s been described by Forbes magazine as “one of the richest men in America,” with a personal fortune estimated at close to $2 billion.
Shout it from the rooftops, The Villages and other deluded and ignorant nouvelle Floridians will continue to vote for Rick Scott.
So this was a Bush era grift. Looks like the reason that billionaires don't go to prison is because they are billionaires, only millionaires go to prison. if even that. SBF, Bernie Madoff, who ran a massive Ponzi scheme, and Michael Milken, who was convicted of securities fraud. Other examples include Raj Rajaratnam, convicted of insider trading, and Elizabeth Holmes, founder of Theranos, who was convicted of fraud.
And they were prosecuted because they forked the wrong people. If their victims were hapless Joe Six Pack, they would still be enjoying their ill gotten gains.
The first inclination we had was JEB Bush's "representation" of Manuel Recaray, International Medical Centers. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/1995/07/fugitive-fingers-jeb-bush/
Jeb was not a lawyer. Recaray skipped and avoided extradition. I also had some IMC cases.
The Bush family. Prescott Bush, helped finance Hitler. Dubya bought the Texas Rangers because of a gift from the bin Laden's
Sadly America has been a kleptocracy since at least the expansion westward
The Crédit Mobilier scandal, buiiding the intercontinental railroad, rail road barons, Rockefeller, Carnegie. James Pierpont Morgan.
And almost all of them "LARGE companies"! None of them "single person owners".
Companies owned by Musk, Ellison, Bezos et al are run like sole proprietorships.
And that's to make us feel all warm and fuzzy about them? I would say less like sole proprietorships and more like fiefdoms.
Now is our moment—take action against this harmful government. They are:
• Covering up a pedophile ring.
• Ignoring court orders.
• Spreading corruption.
The poor, the needy, and children are being abused—by our government. Healthcare, already a broken system, was canceled for 13 million. Take to the streets!
We must protest outright crooks and the pedophiles. They will start shooting us. Untrained ICE agents will shoot us. Protest until we go down or we oust these tyrants.
I made 54 protest signs to aid protest groups. I will make many more to share. You will see something different in these signs! Help yourself to this second batch, and share them as far as you can.
https://hotbuttons.substack.com/p/more-free-protest-signs?r=3m1bs
It is time for city and county officials to block the entrance to ICE concentration camps and refuse to allow them to block their entrance. Trump is succeeding because no one is physically obstructing him. Legal maneuvers are a waste of time, in some cases the courts are Trump humpers and where not, he and ICE ignore the courts. And SCOTUS, they long ago went over to the dark side, with the appointment of Roberts, Alito and Thomas.
I am aware that Trump is ready to declare Martial Law and just wants and excuse, he has already flexed that muscle activating the California Guard and the Marines.
The question is do we sit by and let him turn this nation into a replica of NAZI Germany or Putin's Russia, one piece at a time, or do we come together and rush the regime all at one time.
Scary, but if we sit by and let him boil the frog or do we make a mad rush and stop him now, The police assets of the DoJ and the DoD, are not enough to tackle an outraged ctizenry, realizing that Trump has unpaid auxillaries like the various militia, Aryan brotherhood, 3% ters,, Proud Boys,KKK, etc.
So do we acquiesce in our own enslavement or do we fight back now. There is no struggle without casualties.
Is there comfort, safey, security in slavery? Well, yes for some, like the house slave Stephen in Django Unchained.
There were black overseers and drivers on antebellum Southern plantations, though they held different positions of authority and responsibility than white overseers. While white overseers were hired by the plantation owner to manage the overall operation, black drivers were slaves appointed to oversee the work of other slaves in the fields.
Bring on the UNIONS as our (other than the billionaires) cost of living rises...
The fractional rises get greater (enormously) the less money a family has.
A needed focus by the economists...
Alas, too many unions like the Teamsters went over to the dark side,and there was a counter movement within the UAW to back Trump.
Historically the unions have been racist. In reaction to the great migration, where black workers from the south, mostly Mississippi,flooded into the great lakes states, in response to massive recruitment by manufacturers for cheap labor,
That sentiment has not disappeared, and has been amplified by Clintons NAFTA and GATT.
The blue collar vote has all but disappeared and is disappearing. The surviving unions are AFGE and SEIU, Culinary Workers Union and the hospitality workers unions.
Teamsters I fear are a lost cause, they spent all day in a truck tuned into Alex Jones, Joe Rogan and hate radio.
Now if George Soros, and one of the five progressive or liberal billionaires would by out Sinclair, Cox Media or iHeart we might have progressive radio and TV again.
True - but we need to work on the real workers in those Unions - especially as blue collar workers find the real incomes are shrinking with no Trumpy efforts to change.
Republicans have hundreds of billionaire donors and we have 3.
We need small donors.
Keep repeating to people: NONE OF THIS HAD TO HAPPEN!
Every time the Democrats get a hold on the economy as did the previous Biden Administration, along comes a false prophet trying to sell people on false profits.
True enough eggs went down---while rent and every other damn big expense went up more than 10%. This is just the beginning. A grocery item I paid $4.50 for just went up $.50. That is more than 11% with no tariff.
It's BS price gouging by the retailers that will be added to the "TRump tariffs". In a few months, we are going to be asking "how you like him now?". We must remind the Cult that NONE OF THIS HAD TO HAPPEN!
The real money made on eggs is at the CBOE. https://www.reuters.com/markets/companies/EGG.A/all-listings
As if I needed any more reason to despise the Republicans...Thank you for putting into words the way I'm feeling/thinking.
The nature of "business" has changed. The Dictionary of Occupoational Titles last published by DOL is now obsolite, because jobs have radically changed.
Surely trickle down theory was pure bullshit. Unfortunately it still is taught is some business schools and lives as folklore in Republican circles and in the media. Tax cuts for the wealthy only benefit some of the rich.
I come from a long line of petit bourgeois shop keepers. Now virtually none. I do have a second cousin who owns stores in the Virgin Islands, but most of my friends and relatives my age or younger are academics or professionals. In academia, tenure is being phased out, so in the future these jobs will mostly be "adjunct." Thom says 45% of us are middle class. I bet most are not "employees" in the traditional sense.
According to Google, the number of gig workers varies based on how "gig work" is defined, but it's estimated to be between 57 million and 78.4 million, according to several business and economic publications. This represents roughly 36% of the US workforce, according to TeamStage. Some studies suggest that over half the US workforce could be participating in the gig economy by 2027.
Democratic politicians need to confront this reality. Most gig workers allege that local regulations that require licensing fees or stuff like code enforcement are impediments to competition. These are state matters. Many of these laws were established to protect "haves" like unions to keep out little guys.
Even in Baghdad By the Sea, where we have no state income tax, workers gripe about local restrictions and Dems are identified as the source. Dems need to show that they support the little guy.
Brilliant column, great comments!
Of course the Republicans are the party of business, as in dirty business; as in giving you the business; as in bad for business; as in none of your business.
When the parties unite to play keepaway ball of universal healthcare that results in deaths and over a half million citizens bankrupted through complete transfer of their wealth to a few aristocratic "health care" ruling class elites, remember the saying common in the gangster mob: "It's just business."
But it is hardly the business of just one party, Tom. Neither are "representatives" supporting a genocide that over 90% of citizens vehemently oppose. It is time to demand governance and shun those who try to deflect that into partisan stooging.
It is a party of monkey business -- to put it mildly!
Since the Democratic Party is largely bought-off, the road to neoliberal collapse just keeps getting straighter.
There you go again. The proportion of Dems is miniscule but psy ops forces you to attack your allies. .
Quoting Reagan (“there you go again”) doesn’t help your case. And with allies like current Democratic Party”leadership”, who needs enemies? He needn’t chime in here, but I’m confident Mr. Hartmann would agree with me.
I was on the zoom with him yesterday, and YOU ARE WRONG.
Perhaps, but the current makeup of all three government branches leads me to believe that Democratic defense of democracy has been less than successful.
We wuz screwed.
O,Captain. My Captain, the great refrain, Republicans , where we only care about nobody else but themselves. It really is the Republicans who have always hurt our democracy. We, need a plan, now! It’s them not us. Thanks, Captain! You know that too.
When they mean like a business, they mean like a kingdom.
I don’t understand why the so called liberal press and the democrats aren’t talking about thus everyday!
My first wife and I ended a 30 year marriage at least