« Previous: The Opportunistic Tactics of the U.S. | LRC Home | LRC Blog | Next: Bringing the War Home » February 13, 2012 Major Interests Behind the U.S. Government Posted by Michael S. Rozeff on February 13, 2012 06:02 PM
I do not intend to name them all. For starters, one simple method is to look at the top contributors to the Romney campaign, since he's the Republican frontrunner and also the establishment Republican candidate. They are PACs, and so on for the following ("The organizations themselves did not donate , rather the money came from the organizations' PACs, their individual members or employees or owners, and those individuals' immediate families."):
Goldman Sachs $499,430; JP Morgan Chase & Co $322,400; Morgan Stanley, $281,350; Credit Suisse Group $277,250; Citigroup Inc. $267,050; Bank of America $213,650; Barclays $207,400. The latter are all big banks. Then come Kirkland & Ellis $206,701 (commercial law firm); HIG Capital $188,500 (private investment firm); PriceWaterhouseCoopers (accounting firm); Blackstone Group $175,550 (financial services firm). I'll stop here. It's just more of the same after this.
This suggests that the U.S. government has a very strong Wall Street component. Let's compare Ron Paul's top contributing PACs and so on (see above). They are:
U.S. Army $63,378; U.S. Navy $55,553; U.S. Air Force $48, 531; Google Inc. $32,090; Microsoft Corp $23,346; IBM Corp $20,798; Corriente Advisors $20,000; U.S. Marine Corps $15,388; Intel Corp $14,891; Lockheed Martin $14,021, and I'll stop here. I think that some people in the armed forces like the idea of not having to make war to extend and hold the empire.
Obama's big contributors in 2008 (the PAC and other sources, that is) included major banks, major corporations, some major universities, law firms, and Time Warner (a media company).