David Cay Johnston on Power

"Businesses have gotten policies adopted that have allowed some managers to run corporations as, effectively, criminal enterprises... ... those in control run the fraud."

"he majority of Americans are being duped into supplementing the incomes and extravagant lifestyles of the rich and powerful. ...ur current tax system is manipulated for profit by the wealthy and well positioned."

"In the past quarter century... new rules... have weakened and even destroyed consumer protections while increasing the power of the already powerful. ...he rules affecting who wins and who loses economically have been quietly and subtly rewritten."

"The rich and their lobbyists have taken firm control of the levers of power in Washington and state capitals while remaking the rules in their own interest. They have also imbued private organizations with the power to make rules that few outside the process understand. These same people... the primary source of campaign donations that put politicians in office and keep them there."

"n modern language we think of "idiot" as someone who is stupid or a fool. That is not the classical meaning... An idiot is someone who cares only about himself and has no regard for anyone else, and that's terribly important when you think about tyrants. ...e think of tyrants as people who are horrible... oppressors. ...n its classic historic meaning, tyrant was simply someone who ceased power."

"Trump has... been sued thousands of times for refusing to pay employees, vendors and others. Investors have sued him for fraud in a number of different cities. But among Trump’s most highly refined skills is his ability to deflect or shut down law enforcement investigations. He also uses threats of litigation to deter news organizations from looking behind the curtains of the seemingly all-wise and all-powerful man they often refer to as The Donald."

"or the past quarter century, policies adopted in the name of Adam Smith... that supposedly strengthen the invisible hand guiding the market, have weighed down our economy while simultaneously stuffing the pockets of those among the rich and powerful who solicited them or... were just standing in the right place at a lucrative time. This is our story, not of one free lunch, but of the many banquets at which billions and billions of your dollars are being served to the richest among us."

"The Attorney General, Eric Holder testified, in March of 2013, to Congress that he was afraid to prosecute the banks because it would cause economic disruption. ...I've been going after him in Newsweek for that and he has backtracked, but for months, an Inspector General's report shows, he claimed that they had gone after more than a billion dollars and over 500 people involved in mortgage fraud... still... a drop in the bucket. ...In fact, there were less than a hundred cases involving $95 million ...a drop in a drop ...and he kept telling this lie. So we... now have a government that does not go after people who are engaged in criminal frauds because they are considered so powerful, that if they were prosecuted it would damage the economy. My God!"