*** What you can do to break the yoke of Big Business, Big Banks, Big Insurance and Big Oil off your middle class necks.
From Denny: Are you disgusted with your Big Bank credit card company jamming you up with outrageous minimum payment demands, feeing you to death and playing games with variable high interest rates without recourse or punishment for their actions?
Are you fed up with the financial sector Wall Street hyenas' artificially inflated prices at the gas pump?
Are you furious that Big Insurance keeps hiking up your health care premiums and other insurance products?
Are you in a rage that Big Business lobbyists for Big Banks, Big Insurance and Big Oil have a stranglehold on our government?
Are you unemployed and furious that Big Business lobbyists went to great lengths to deny you unemployment benefits extensions to pay your bills and put food on the table because they were too cheap to pay their portion of the benefits?
Want to have the power to do something about it?Denny's Think Tank and Muffin MondayDenny's Think Tank, currently comprised of just two people and four Hurricane Katrina cats at our house - however, we are extending free membership to all my dear readers of all 14 blogs - well, we have been busy on the problem and come up with the solution. We like to "solve all the problems of the world" at our house every morning over coffee.
Good ideas seem to evolve from one small act. That small act of mine, as a blogger, began with
Muffin Monday recipe segments on the food blogs:
Romancing The Chocolate,
Unusual 2 Tasty and
Comfort Food From Louisiana.
I like muffins. Who doesn't? It's practically unpatriotic not to like muffins. Muffins are easy to make for beginner bakers. Muffins are popular in America, and, as a blogger, I was looking for non-copyright released recipes I could publish easily. Researching there was found a treasure trove of good recipes, ones tweaked - and therefore changed from the originals - from what I realized had been previous Gourmet, Epicurious, Food and Wine and Bon Appetit recipes from the past 20 years. Yes, foodies read too many glossy magazines. It must be the awesome photos. :)
The treasure trove of good recipes was found at various bed and breakfast inn sites so I decided how cool it would be to do more than provide a courtesy link to their business but rather to start promoting them
because they are small businesses.
Big Business has run so many small businesses out of business the past 20 years that America has become this boring homogenized vast wasteland of mediocre choices. I've watched wonderful local colorful grocery stores, pharmacies, hardware stores, restaurants and clothing stores all get broken by Big Business just in my area.
Ruthless Big Business continues to break small businesses
The one exception I have to say that behaves better for Big Business is the Whole Foods grocery chain. When they came to Baton Rouge, Louisiana they took a look at the surrounding Mom and Pop grocery stores and did not undercut their prices on matching products they carried. Whole Foods also supports the local farmers and buys up all the fruits, nuts, vegetables and meats they can produce. I'm sure they are not perfect but at least they make a conscious effort not to cause bad economic ripples in the community where they plant themselves.
That said, the vast majority of Big Business is ruthless. Lately, they have gotten just too ruthless by sending thousands of jobs overseas after receiving taxpayer government monies. (That was General Motors, folks, who took our money and then cut 5,000 jobs that went overseas this year.) Big Business continues to think they can cut thousands of jobs, send them overseas and yet there will be people left in our country who can afford to buy their products. What kind of logic is this? The only answer is unadulterated greed - and a CEO who wants to make his quarterly BOB: Big Obscene Bonus.
What you can do to break Big BusinessWe Americans continue to grouse, complain and outright bitch to our political representatives and the courts only to be lied to, taken advantage of and denied fairness and justice. So, what is a self-respecting American and rabble rouser to do to gain back their power in their own country? Easy. Support ONLY small businesses like these bed and breakfast inns whenever you travel for business or pleasure. Their prices are comparable to Big Business hotel chains and so are the amenities, local attractions and shopping.
The beauty of this strategy of supporting bed and breakfast inns over Big Business hotels is that Big Banks and Big Insurance finance the mortgages on these Big Business hotels. Right now commercial real estate has taken a nose dive, hence, the reason the Big Banks took bailouts from the American taxpayers. In fact, the Big Banks unloaded all their toxic assets - like foreclosed homes and small businesses - onto and for the American government to absorb - in addition to taking billions of dollars plunked down onto their profit line.
World leader fools, minus Obama, from the G20 Meeting who are bankrupting the world economy by rejecting the governmental Spend Money economic model: Frustration with American politicians
Big Business controls our government on so many levels. We are reduced to waiting for each election cycle in the hopes of throwing out the corrupt politicians. Yet, at the end of the day, the Big Business lobbyists continue to do business in Washington, ignoring the voters' wishes and now desperate needs.
Achilles Heels of Big Business, Big Banks, Big Insurance, Big Oil and Big LobbyistsThe one weakness these powerful behemoths have in common is us. If we all - or at least 15 percent of the country - refuse to do business with them it will destroy their businesses. Most huge companies run on about a two percent to 15 percent profit margin to stay in business. Surprising, isn't it? Auto dealers run on a two percent profit margin. It's the manufacturers who screw them over as small businesses so they pass it on to screw over the customers. It's an ugly cycle.
Facebook BP Protesters SucceededOver 300,000 people banned together on Facebook to protest BP gas stations, refusing to buy their product. In my town where we have an Exxon oil refinery, the price of gas is outrageous. BP's prices are often as much as 75 cents higher than Exxon and Shell. People say by protesting BP gas stations you are hurting the American owners. I say, "You lie down with dogs you get fleas." It's time for people to make a choice if they will be truly patriotic and do what helps all of America or keep choosing their profit wallets over the dire straits of the economy.
These BP protesters succeeded in driving down the value of BP's stock to half of what it had been before the oil spill. If we support small businesses and shut out Big Businesses as much as possible we can break their high stock values as well. Think of all the Walmarts that drove out dozens of small businesses.
Originally, from the 30 year old model, Big Businesses like Walmart were supposed to offer better prices to American shoppers. But, over time, those prices have risen and poor quality products from child labor and prisoner inmate labor countries have flooded our markets. The Chinese use prison laborers and give us toxic lead paint toys. India uses child labor to produce rugs and clothing. Meanwhile, our textile factories across America close and thousands of people lost their jobs.
Hope is still here if only we will act and take back our powerThe sad stories are endless. But, so also is Hope: endless. We can change things in this country if enough of us will band together and use our power as consumers to break all the Big Businesses. You break the Big Businesses - and the Big Banks who finance them also fall with them. When the Big Business and Big Banks fall then so too do the Big Lobbyists with no one to pay them outrageous money to hijack our government with economic terrorism.
Break Big Banks by moving your checking accounts to small and medium sized banksAnother way to break Big Banks is to move your checking accounts to federal credit unions and other regional and local medium and small sized banks. Only Big Banks get the best interest rates and then they jack up their prices and lend to the medium and small banks, virtually holding them hostage.
So why does the Federal Reserve not give the same great interest prices to the small and medium sized banks? The Fed remains quiet on that one and has in every administration. There is no excuse for it. Big Banks continue to hold a monopoly in our country, strangling the economy with their greedy and unwise practices.
Small Business Employs most of AmericaRemember, the statistics tell us that somewhere between 70 to 80 percent of Americans work for small businesses.
Small businesses also keep the jobs here in America unlike the Big Businesses. It's time to run Big Businesses out of business or succeed in breaking them up into smaller less damaging entities.
Either way the American consumer wins because the small businesses will get more business and have to start hiring the unemployed. Hiring the unemployed will jump start our economy. It will make it possible to rebuild America into a thriving economy. We will no longer be co-dependent upon the whims of Big Business and our corrupt corporate-loving politicians who fawn at their arrogant diva feet.
Join the American Revolt Against Big Business Quit waiting for everyone in Washington to grow a conscience. Take back your power, America. Join the American Revolt to shut out Big Business today!
(Join the
American Revolt Against Big Business and
Denny's Think Tank by leaving your name and a website link in the comment box.)
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