Who Runs America?

Few governments in the world are so utterly under the influence of corporate interests as in the United States. According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), two-thirds of corporations in America paid no federal income taxes at all between 1998 and 2005. This includes a fourth of all large US companies (those with assets worth $250 million or more). An earlier GAO report showed that 61 per cent of US corporations paid no federal income taxes between 1996 and 2000, periods of high growth and huge corporate profits, and periods when both major parties held the White House.  Larry Summers, director of 44's National Economic Council, facilitated the creation of the bubble economy through financial deregulation that has brought us to these dire straits.  Summers has consolidated his power in the White House to the point that the press calls him 44's "chief economic adviser".  He was a proponent of policies--from the lifting of capital controls in developing economies to the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act at home--that proved spectacularly wrong.   So what's a few thousand in back taxes among friends?  Wackydoodle asks: "I'm a hearin' they's a job at the health department--anybody tell Dennis?"