Dead Peasant Insurance Exposed

In the movie, "Capitalism, a Love Story", Michael Moore exposes a sinister secret that has been part of the American corporate world for some time now -- DEAD PEASANT INSURANCE. Your boss wants you DEAD. It seems that major corporations in America have been secretly buying life insurance policies on their employees, especially the low-level ones. You die, they win, even after you leave the company. If I bought a life insurance policy on my neighbor, I would have a vested interest in his death. How is this any different?

Here is an example:




This practice has been kept a secret for many years. Here is the reaction of ABC News analysts:



Among the corporations that have bought such insurance, nicknamed "janitors' " or "dead peasants' " insurance, are AT&T, Dow Chemical, Nestle USA, Procter & Gamble, Walt Disney and Wal-Mart. Corporations gain not merely from the tax-free life insurance benefits they receive when current or former employees die but also can borrow money against these policies. Many companies even deducted the interest on these loans from their taxes.

In 1996 Congress moved to limit such deductions, and the IRS has sued some 80 corporations, including Winn-Dixie and American Electric Power, to collect back taxes on such loans. Still, companies benefit. They are not taxed on gains within a life insurance policy; in effect, these policies amount to tax-free investments for businesses.

Critics have compared these life insurance policies to those purchased by some American slaveholders on the lives of their slaves, who also were unaware of such policies held by their owners. Finally, someone is going to do something about this practice which at the very least is immoral and should be illegal.

Finally, Rep. Luis Gutiérrez (D-Chicago) is raising a red flag. He chairs the U.S. House Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit. This week Gutiérrez introduced a bill that would ban employer-owned life insurance unless the worker earns at least a million dollars a year from the company. He presented the legislation Wednesday on the House floor.

GUTIERREZ: In a nation where millions of full-time workers have no health insurance, maybe if we prevent companies from betting on the death of their employees, they’ll invest in the health of their employees.


For violations, the bill would provide civil and criminal remedies.










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This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

It is Time to Pass FDR's Second Bill of Rights

FDR's Second Bill of Rights

The Second Bill of Rights was a proposal made by United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt during his State of the Union Address on January 11, 1944 to suggest that the nation had come to recognize, and should now implement, a second bill of rights. Roosevelt did not argue for any change to the United States Constitution; he argued that the second bill of rights was to be implemented politically, not by federal judges. Roosevelt's stated justification was that the "political rights" guaranteed by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights had "proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness." Roosevelt's remedy was to create an "economic bill of rights" which would guarantee:

A job with a living wage

Freedom from unfair competition and monopolies

A home

Medical care

Education

Recreation

Roosevelt stated that having these rights would guarantee American security, and that America's place in the world depended upon how far these and similar rights had been carried into practice. Watch our greatest President as he delivers his historic address to the people of the United States. Too ill to give his State of the Union address in Congress, he delivered it over the radio nationally from the White House.



Unfortunately, FDR died in 1945 and the hopes for the Second Bill of Rights being implemented died with him. Over the next decade, the power of the banks, corporations and the military industrial complex grew tremendously and threatened the American way of life. At the end of his Presidential term in 1960, President Dwight David Eisenhower warned the American people of the coming dominance of the military industrial complex.



On Nov. 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, the coup d'etat was accomplished, and the Neocons took power in this country, and untold billions were re-directed to corporate interests at the expense of the American people. Capitalism had won; Democracy had lost. Here is the speech that led to JFK's assassination:

I urge everyone to see Michael Moore's new movie: Capitalism, a Love Story.











Copyright @ 1998-2009
All Rights Reserved

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Michael Moore Takes on Wolf Blitzer Again

Michael Moore appeared on CNN Thursday evening with Wolf Blitzer to discuss his new movie, Capitalism: A Love Story. This is Moore’s first interview with Blitzer since his film Sicko was released, and as Moore puts it, they had a ‘YouTube moment.’ Moore slammed Blitzer and CNN for mistatements about universal health care and his film Sicko during that interview in 2007 when Blitzer attempted to debunk facts presented in the film with ‘facts’ from CNN’s medical expert, Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Moore debunked Gupta’s facts in detail on his own web site, and later went head to head with the doctor on the Larry King Show.

Well, they had another YouTube moment last night.






source: RAW STORY









Copyright @ 1998-2009
All Rights Reserved

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Michael Moore Exposes Capitalism

Enjoy the trailer from Michael Moore's new movie, CAPITALISM, A LOVE STORY, a blockbuster examination of capitalism and how it serves the wealthy. As usual, Moore attacks a painful subject with humor, sarcasm and above all, TRUTH. Here is the trailer:












Copyright @ 1998-2009
All Rights Reserved

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.