US Corporations have rights as persons under the 14th Amendment

... with full civil rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Today's US Supreme Court Decision to allow Corporations to spend as much money as they like to fund their congressional candidates against the interests of US Citizens is built on the Corporation's 1st and 14th amendment rights decided earlier last century. How did we get here?

Buy it, rent it or borrow from the library but "The Corporation" is a must watch documentary.

Amazon Review of The Corporation:

An epic in length and breadth, this documentary aims at nothing less than a full-scale portrait of the most dominant institution on the planet Earth in our lifetime--a phenomenon all the more remarkable, if not downright frightening, when you consider that the corporation as we know it has been around for only about 150 years. It used to be that corporations were, by definition, short-lived and finite in agenda. If a town needed a bridge built, a corporation was set up to finance and complete the project; when the bridge was an accomplished fact, the corporation ceased to be. Then came the 19th-century robber barons, and the courts were prevailed upon to define corporations not as get-the-job-done mechanisms but as persons under the 14th Amendment with full civil rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (i.e., power and profit)--ad infinitum.

The classic recession flick, Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Ferris, fingers the man and teaches his best friend about living. Rent it, buy it, netflix it or best of all, borrow it from your local library. Its free!

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Here are some must reads for all no job survivors. Get them from Amazon or even better park yourself in the public library.

• Suze Orman's 2009 Action Plan - Managing your money in hard times.
• The Tipping Point by Malcom Gladwell - How certain products and ideas become fads. A good read for those of you starting a business. Also check Outliers by the same author.
• Getting Things Done by David Allen - Reducing stress and aiding performance.
• The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey - Principles for success.
• The Disposable American: Layoffs and Their Consequences by Louis Uchitelle - the necessity of preserving jobs.
• Getting Fired: What to Do if You're Fired, Downsized, Laid Off, Restructured, Discharged, Terminated, or Forced to Resign by Steven Mitchell Sack - Everything you need to keep your self-respect, protect your rights and obtain the money that justly belongs to you in the event of dismissal.

Check Books, Games and TV for other reading and watching ideas.

David Korten's Agenda for a New Economy: From Phantom Wealth to Real Wealth discusses the nature of wealth. Korten refers to the current measure of wealth as "phantom wealth," in which he lays out a case for its replacement with "real wealth." The book is very timely as the US Federal government is plying Wall Street with billions to prop up or stabilize the US financial system. The need is real but there is an unsettling feeling that Wall Street needs some fundamental changes. Korten articulates some of those feelings into concrete recommendations.

Korten asks "What do Wall Street institutions do that is so vital that it justifies spending trillions to save them from their own excesses?" "Might there be other ways to provide necessary and beneficial services with greater effectiveness and at lesser cost?"

Korten's recommendations:

• Full-cost market pricing (includes subsidies, pollution, injuries),
• assessing fees and prohibitions to make Wall Street theft and gambling less profitable (eg. outlaw selling, insuring, borrowing against assets one doesn't own, taxing trades),
• tax hedge fund earnings as ordinary income (not capital gains),
• rebuild the economy for greater self-reliance,
• make the U.S. wealth distribution more equitable,
• and require the Treasury Dept. to take over failed banks - not just loan them money.