Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Guilty Until Proven Innocent; Grabbing Hand of the Law

Posted: 02 Nov 2013 08:56 PM PDT

In criminal court, you are innocent until proven guilty.

It's a different matter altogether in civil forfeiture, where prosecutors can and do seize the assets of anyone on phony charges. Given there is no recourse or fine, the best the innocent victims can do is get their property back, most likely with a huge delay, if at all.

Consider the plight of Terry Dehko and his daughter Sandy Thomas. They run a small grocery store in Fraser, Michigan. Because their insurance only covers a cash limit of $10,000, they frequently make smaller deposits. One day last January, the government seized $35,000 of their assets, not in the store, but in the store account.

Officials said Dehkos had violated federal money-laundering rules, which forbid people to "structure" their bank deposits so as to avoid the $10,000 threshold that triggers banks to report a transaction to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

There was no evidence of guilt. Dehko was not charged with any crimes, and the IRS supported Dehko's claim. Nonetheless, Dehko is offered 20% of the amount taken from him.

Grabbing Hand of the Law

The Economist explains the plight of Dehko in its report The Grabbing Hand of the Law

In criminal cases, the government can confiscate assets only after a conviction. Under "civil forfeiture", however, it can grab first and ask questions later. Property can be seized merely on the suspicion that it has been involved in a crime. Citizens have no right to a swift hearing. For a small business, that can be fatal.

In many civil-forfeiture cases the agencies that seize the assets keep most of the proceeds, and can use them to pad their budgets or buy faster patrol cars. It is hard to know how common this is, but the Institute for Justice (a libertarian law firm that is representing the Dehkos) notes that the federal government shared $450m of seized assets with state and local authorities in 2012.

The grabbers do not always prevail. A motel owner in Massachusetts recently won back his motel after prosecutors tried to seize it because one guest in 13,000 had been arrested for drug offences. In October in California, prosecutors who were trying to seize a building because two of the tenants were marijuana dispensaries (which are legal under Californian law), gave up and let the landlord keep it.

But this is scant comfort for the Dehkos, who are struggling to hold on to the store they have run since 1978. "It's kind of scary that they can do this to you," says Ms Thomas. "In America, you're supposed to be innocent until proven guilty."

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

10 Corporations Control Nearly Everything You Buy, 6 Media Corporations Control Nearly Everything You Read or Watch

Posted: 02 Nov 2013 10:34 AM PDT

PolicyMic has a very interesting chart that shows how 10 Corporations Control Almost Everything You Buy.

click on chart for huge image

The chart was posted on Reddit as illusion of choice. I could not locate the original source.

PolicyMic explains ...

Ten mega corporations control the output of almost everything you buy; from household products to batteries.

These corporations create the chain of supplies that flow from one another. Each chain begins at one of the 10 super companies.

Here's just one example: Yum Brands owns KFC and Taco Bell. The company was a spin-off of Pepsi. All Yum Brands restaurants sell only Pepsi products because of a lifetime deal with the soda-maker.

$84 billion company Proctor & Gamble owns companies that produce everything from detergent to toothpaste. Unilever produces everything from Dove soap to Klondike bars.

It's not just the products you buy and consume, either. In recent decades, the very news and information that you get has bundled together: 90% of the media is now controlled by just six companies, down from 50 in 1983, according to a Frugal Dad infographic from last year.

It gets even more macro, too: 37 banks have merged to become just four — JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and CitiGroup in a little over two decades, according to this Federal Reserve map.

The nation's 10 largest financial institutions hold 54% of our total financial assets; in 1990, they held 20%. As MotherJones reports, the number of banks has dropped from more than 12,500 to about 8,000.

Media Consolidation

Everything You Think, Read, or Say

I always try to find a link to the original source, but none of the links to a Frugal Dad article work.

Regardless anything you read, watch, or buy is in the hands of fewer and fewer companies. The same applies to banks.

This is another reason we need an independent news network. One is actually in the works, started by Jeremy Scahill, National Security Correspondent for The Nation magazine, and Glenn Greenwald who broke the NSA spy story.

For details, please see War Against Journalists; "We Hit the Jackpot"

Question of the Day

How long will it be, before everything to think read or say is in the pill you took today?

Link if video does not play: Zager And Evans

Addendum:

A couple of readers said the percentages mentioned above are way overstated. Indeed they are, especially if one takes the words "everything you buy" literally, then produces a grand total by dollar amount.

I took it form the start the infographic did not include cars, boats, houses, jewelry, etc, but rather common junk and foodstuff. I should have made a comment to that effect but didn't.

The same applies to the stats on media giants.

The important point is the idea behind the graphics, even if the percentage estimates stated are on the wild side.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

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Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

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