Michigan’s Carnival of Economic Carnality: Who Runs Rick Snyder?

The interlocking overlords of Michigan run the agenda presented by the Detroit News - their main newsprint outlet. The behind the scenes sponsors and originators, controllers of the flow of managed and contrived information and agenda opinion are those who are principals in both the Mackinac Center for Public Policy and the Business Leaders for Michigan (BLM) add in the untoward influence and direct access to Michigan law making via the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

Michigan is a generator of ALEC models and has over 100 past or present legislators who are members (including the MI GOP's new national committee man Dave Agema) and you have the lockbox from which the TeaPublican/Snyder/Elites pull the plan that determines the future economy and the range of freedom for most Michiganians.

Take US Rep. Dave Agema, a robotic ALEC lackey:

"MI HB-4305 Sec. 4.1 (PDF) contains language that is pretty much, word for word, cribbed from ALEC model legislation 7K5, Sec. 2 (A) (PDF).  The Michigan legislation was "plug and played" directly into a bill-unedited or lightly amended) was sponsored by Rep. Dave Agema, an ALEC Member."

Brilliant hod-carrying for the corporatocracy statesman Dave!

Foreign Written Sharia Law is Bad, but Multinational Corporations (with foreign ownership) Writing 'Cut & Paste' Laws Good: Michigan US Rep Dave Agema presents his proposed HM 4769 American Laws for American Courts or ALAC bill in Lansing, MI on May 10, 2012 after being introduced by Alan Cropsey from Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette's office.

Most of the activity of the overlords is done in secret and sub-rosa. Little is known about who actually contributes to the Mackinac Center. This aggressive and anti-worker propaganda mill was set up by Richard McLellan esq. and John Mathias Engler along with others whose model was drawn from that of the Heritage Foundation which in turn was funded and boosted, early on, by both Richard (Rich) M. DeVos Sr. and Jay Van Andel of Amway.

The programs and opinions of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy have had carte blanche to hundreds of pages of local and regional news outlets, their videos, speakers bureau, publications (Capital Confidential, and anti-union Educational Journal sent to all of Michigan's public school teachers) has a wide sphere of influence. Slick brochures and brightly colored booklets promote a wide range of rational intended to promote and achieve their objectives. They have been successful beyond their wildest dreams; they have a complete control/homogeny over the political processes of Michigan.

MichiganVotes.org is Mackinac Center's tracking site on legislation. These business elites hold control over a supine Michigan State Supreme Court as the final rubber stamp/safeguard on their achievements.

Look at these examples of the interlocking roles of Michigan Corporations with the private political power machine that runs Michigan:

• Mackinac Donor: Chase Foundation = BLM Member: Sarah McClelland, President, Michigan Region/Chase Bank
• Mackinac Donor: Hanover Insurance Group Foundation =BLM Member: Frederick Eppinger, President and CEO, Hanover Insurance Group
• Mackinac Donor: Herbert and Grace Dow Foundation = BLM Member: Andrew Liveris, CEO, Dow Chemical
• Mackinac Donor: General Motors Foundation = BLM Member: Daniel Akerson, CEO/Chairman of the Board, General Motors
• Mackinac Donor: Jay and Betty Van Andel Institute = BLM Member: Steve Van Andel, Amway
• Mackinac Donors: Dick and Betsy DeVos Foundation, Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation, Edgar and Elsa Prince Foundation = BLM Member: Doug DeVos, Amway

The "Turnaround Plan for Michigan" produced by these principals and others included:

1. Reducing the compensation of state employees
2. Requiring state employees pay more for their health insurance...
3. Encouraging sharing of services between local governments
4. Eliminating binding arbitration for police officers and firefighter
5. Deregulating workplace safety standards
6. Reducing the Michigan Business Tax

This is only the tip of the iceberg of goals or targets included in the radical "reinvention" Snyder hid from the voters in his stealth campaign for governor in 2008.

What did the Holland Sentinel reveal of the nature of the BLM? Read the Holland Sentinel op-ed:

"One of the most influential civic groups that emerged in reaction to our state's tailspin last decade was Business Leaders for Michigan. Comprised of top executives at some of the state's largest companies (among them the locally based Haworth, Herman Miller and Perrigo), BLM took a broader outlook than most other business groups, issuing a wide-ranging Michigan Turnaround Plan in 2010, many elements of which were incorporated into Gov. Rick Snyder's agenda in 2011."

There are many, many other interlocking cronyisms in the engine powering the BLM/ALEC/Mackinac Center cabal:

"Because there's more apparent government tie-in to the BLM-and the Mackinac Policy Center-than just Rick Snyder's obvious channeling of their policies. John Nixon, the State Budget Director, has been a speaker at the BLM's Leadership Conference. So has William (Bill) Schuette... (Michigan's Attorney General) who also happens to be the Trustee of the Rollin M. Gerstaker Foundation-a major Mackinac Center contributor.

"Mark Murray, a BLM member and current president of Meijer, Inc., was formerly the Michigan State Treasurer, the Michigan State Budget Director, and the Director of the Department of Management and Budget."

"Andy Dillon, failed gubernatorial candidate, is "the former vice president of GE Capital and then president of Detroit Steel Company. As Speaker of the Michigan House, he endorsed the BLM turnaround plan. Now, he's Rick Snyder's State Treasurer."

"Doug Rothwell, (well identified cohort with John M. Engler’s long tenure) the current president and CEO of the Business Leaders for Michigan, was appointed in January by Rick Snyder to be Chairman of the Michigan Economic Development Corporation. As Progress Michigan noted, "This gives BLM-a private organization-virtual control over an agency that makes decisions regarding tens of millions of taxpayer dollars and sets economic policy for the state."

(Emphasis Added)

These Princes of Corporate Prosperity Are Well-Rewarded for Their Activities
 
The combined income of the "81 members of BLM make $107.5 million a year in salary” (as of 2010), they are the elites that determine, as never before, the life and living conditions of Michigan's children, mentally ill, poor, labor, public employees and all others. Nothing escapes their ability to trump the vital interests of the Middle Class, they rule!

Residents of West Michigan will recognize a lot of these familiar names:

1.    Jim Hackett from Steelcase in office furniture,
2.    Richard Haworth from Haworth another furniture producer,
3.    Mark Bissell, the vacuum-cleaner king,
4.    Dan Gordon of Gordon Food Service, and
5.    Blake Krueger from Wolverine World Wide.

Rick Snyder's campaign outline (Snyder's 10 Point Plan) came directly from the previously published BLM objectives, who runs/controls whom?

If you are upset with the tremendous hit that Michigan families have taken in the last 10 years look to them, these powerful elites have the levers of power and decision-making. They rule, you can suffer.

Source: Quotes drawn from: The Kings of Michigan, from GRIID March 31, 2011.


On the Reader:
Watch US Rep. Dave Agema scaring the radical right and Teapublicans in Lansing concerning the "threat" of foreign Sharia Law, or read an article "Why Rep. Dave Agema wants to stop Sharia by banning 'foreign laws' in Michigan courts" or a little about mini-scandal surrounding a similar meeting in the City of Allegan.

Related Slates:
Nationally popular featured article "Rick Snyder & the American Legislative Exchange Council’s (ALEC) Corporatist “Disaster Capitalism” on the Prowl in Michigan" or more on ALEC and the BLM on the Gazette.

The Original Post was CENSORED and DELETED by the editorial staff at the Detroit News and Michigan View.

In Detroit: Resentment, Malice & Roaring Opportunism Ride a Wave of Harsh Tea Party Ideology

A Scummy Tide of Power-Grabbing & Vengeance Sweeps Over Michissippi (Michigan). The threatening tsunami that is: the powerful have put Detroit in a stagnate Sargasso Sea of neglect for years.  Now the elites blame it all on minorities and labor--trapped and struggling amid the congealed flotsam and debris.

Reckless Abandonment: Corporate logos were removed, but the castaway
company carcasses remain (Fisher Plant - The Moter(less) City 2009)

Over the last decades hundreds of firms have simply walked away from stewardship and management of their real estate and concerns in Detroit.

In the book, "THE RUINS OF DETROIT" and others like it feature pictures of the grand and ornate high rise office buildings, libraries, schools, and hotels just left to rot. This reality sends a signal to the present. In some cases with fixtures and contents in place, we see places as though the management simply walked out, valuable real estate abandoned! And walk out they did!

It wasn't minorities who abandoned the billions dollars of capital assets moldering down as rotting, moldy architecture and as the visually evocative "war zones" comprised of abandoned industrial sites. It was the elites, the powerful, the men of money, and the politically connected who made/allowed this to happen, not the workers and the service staffs.

Putting the "walk-away" abandonment curse on the shoulders of an underclass is not and was not a "class act"; it was and is dishonest--a crime.

The vicious world of the landlord, rampant graft, and the spoils of the speculators is all around. This crisis was and is fueled further by greedy mortgage companies and fraud-promoting banks.

Detroit was deep, deep in trouble before the Great George W. Bush Recession. There were indicators revealing the impact of a devastating Michigan 'One-State-Depression' to be seen everywhere in Detroit prior to fall 2008. Events triggered then have loosed the bonds of civility and escalated urban hopelessness, thus creating a tinderbox for social unrest.

Charlie LeDuff made this salient point in his article, "The Ghost Mayor", March 17, 2012 stating:

"The governor might then use the only stick left in his bag. LET THE CITY DROWN."

"Already vendors and contractors are not getting paid and the city will run out of cash in a month. That means cops, paramedics and tax collectors won't get paid. Ambulances won't get fixed. Parks won't open.

"Under that scenario, you can expect a long, hot, bloody summer."
(emphasis added)

Let’s hope that such is not the case.

-----

Detroit has corporate rot at its very heart. It's former opulence and importance has been replaced with decadence, social decay, crime, and abandonment--all topped with a rich coating of cynicism and blame-speaking as a direct result of corporate malfeasance and neglect. Now, to walk away, to maliciously place exaggerated blame on the current elected officials and the managers of infrastructure (in tatters for years) is perverse.

To exalt at the destruction and ultimate downfall of what remains of this once great international city is a civic sin of huge magnitude and scope.

Golden Age of Upper Class Fun: Downtown Detroit Fisher Building
Penthouse Playground in 1925 (Michigan Historical Society Archive)

'One Tough Nerd' Snyder & Company of corporatists (BLM) have lots of plans. They hope to move in and take over, by dictatorial/undemocratic means. What which remains (be it fallow ground or crumbling ruins) is visioned as theirs to rebuild, making a portion of the city into a renaissance of re-invention. To do this they must do the "down and dirty" to those who for years have been trapped in a city with over three fourths of its residents who are on some form of assistance. Power must transfer directly into their hands.

Can we untangle the city from its mass of floatsam and start a New Detroit?  To do so will take a profound, pro-active commitment, determination, a new vision, and yes, a ocean of capital both financial and human.

On the Reader: 
Observations and iconic images on the blog "The Motor (less) City: Post-industrial Detroit" and Photo Archive.

Related Slates:
"Detroit: Behemoth 'Motor City' Whale Fights for Its Life as Snyder's EM & Scavengers Circle" - "Michigan GOP's Power Grab Thievery: Patterson's 30 Year Jim Crow / EM Plot to Steal Detroit's Royal Jewels & Liquid Assets" and the ongoing Emergency Management Jim Crow / EM Plantation SERIES.


Original.

A Shout Out to the Overlords of Michissippian EM Plantations (Michigan Emergency Managerment)

In the New Order under the dictatorial hand of Rick Snyder and Andy Dillon Esq., the world of take-overs and liquidation of Michigan's struggling communities (under Lansing's Central Planning and the undemocratic imposition of Emergency Manager law) is well underway.

Snyder & Dillon have methodically begun their quasi-legal Foreclosure of many Michissippian units of government.

Their plan was to conduct all these discussions and decisions in secret out of the public's purview, without outside perspectives or the impacted peoples' permission, leaving the majority of Michigan's urban minorities to patiently and peacefully await their fate in silence.

Segregation and discrimination by Gubernatorial Decree

However the rights of citizens don't die by fiat - according to the Freep report "Detroit financial review team members to meet in private after all":

"The Detroit financial review team that was told it can no longer meet behind closed doors held its first public meeting Tuesday, and within minutes, it created a subcommittee that plans to hold private meetings."

"In the Detroit case, the financial review team, appointed in December by Gov. Rick Snyder, was ordered by an Ingham County judge earlier this month to halt its meetings after Robert Davis, an open government activist, sued on the grounds that the closed meetings violated the state's Open Meetings Act. On Tuesday, Davis promised to proceed with another legal challenge.

"'For them to try to establish a subcommittee so they can meet in private is ABSOLUTELY ABSURD and a slap in the face to every single Detroiter,' Davis said. 'This is the same group that said they aren't subject to the Open Meetings Act. Who are you going to believe?'"

"The subcommittee is expected to meet and assess the risks and benefits of the appointment of an emergency manager or the institution of a consent agreement, under which state officials and Mayor Dave Bing likely would privatize some services and wipe out union contracts in an attempt to right the city's finances. They are expected to complete a report by March 14 and report findings to the full review team."

The Business Leaders for Michigan (big wealth & corporations), the One Percenters, and the aggressive TeaPublicans who are the new plantation managers under EM; take heed of these immortal words from Sam Adams, founding liberator, warning the citizens of Michigan:

"If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen."

-- Samuel Adams, remarks on August 1, 1776 to the State House delegation Philadelphia.

Long live local freedom! Die now tyranny of the coercive, Jim Crow, and several EM Plantations!

UPDATE: According to the Freep and blogged by EM issue tracker Eclectablog, the judge was not amused by the formation of the Dillon/Snyder 'subcommittee' that is to continue meeting in secret:

"An Ingham County judge this afternoon ordered all 10 members of the Detroit emergency financial review team to appear in his courtroom March 12 to answer why they should not be held in contempt for attempting to evade his finding that the review team is subject to the Open Meetings Act by forming a smaller committee to meet in secret.

Judge William Collette issued the order at the request of attorneys for Robert Davis, the employee of AFSCME who filed open meetings lawsuits against financial review teams in both Detroit and the Highland Park school districts.

Davis said the five-member subcommittee created by the review team on Tuesday is clearly an attempt to circumvent Collette’s finding that review teams are public agencies subject to the open meeting law."

Note: New legislation to get around the repeal petition, and suspension of PA 4 (Emergency Manager Law) is also in the works, this story will continue.



Original.

Tricky Rick & His 'Nerd Herd' Play Dangerous Economic Game in Michigan

"Re-invented" Michigan is headed in a disastrous economic direction: Feed the Corporations & Business Buddies v. Starve the Poor, the Elderly, and Shank Our Children.

How Truly Nuts Is This?

Snyder's slick 2 billion dollar tax increase/shift means: Less sales taxes, less commercial, fewer new customers and other diminishing business activity and expansion of small businesses. These are the direct results of headstrong, stone-hearted Tea-Publicans in Michigan's Super Majority Legislature having pushed through 2011 massive tax hikes on the poor, having stolen promise and limited savings from retirees, and having upped the daily survival expenses of vital public sector workers.

READER: "Titanic shift in Lansing" by Judy Putnam on February 25, 2011 at the Michigan League for Human Services


Herd of Robber Barons during turn of the century Age of Greed

All of this Snyder CEO inspired "harvesting" of nearly $2 billion in new taxes was raised to blatantly treat the Nerd's business buddies with a massive and excessive business bail-out/gift. Tax hikes of this magnitude will impact directly consumer demand and sales across the state. Less sales taxes, less commercial, fewer new customers and other diminishing business activity, as well as fewer small business successes will be the result.

Exactly how much of a cut-in-demand will result from Snyder's massive new taxes remains to be seen. But unavoidable reductions will gut the joy of the Michigan State Chamber of Commerce (now luxuriating in its power to strip monies away from the poor, the retired on limited incomes and pensions, children, and public servants) is headed for a rude awaking.


Snyder and a few of the political gaggle following the Nerd Herd, Signing Business Tax Cuts June 2011 (Official Photo)

The new Michigan Income Tax hit on investment income will dull and diminish the draw Michigan has had with retirees who have husbanded a personal portfolio intended to care for themselves to the end of life. Given the very nature of the radical shift from reasonable taxes on business and industry (sectors that utilize the common spaces and infrastructure as a means to produce profit and trade) to those whose working days are over is especially off-putting and repulsive to elders who can easily move themselves and their "kitty" to a friendlier state. Start subtracting retirees from drug stores, restaurants, retail stores, and from doctors and hospital care, then see for yourself what a terrible blunder the Nerd herd has committed. Seniors with their carefully stashed savings are a huge, stable financial asset to any community.

Add to the Nerd's negative tax scenario the hard facts about jobs in Michigan reported by Susan Demas:

"While Michigan added 63,500 jobs in 2011, it could have been more. Why? Well, the private sector grew, as University of Michigan economists reported. There were 77,500 private-sector jobs added. But the overall number of jobs added was brought down by the decline in government sector jobs.

CALCULATION: 2011 Lost 14,000 or is it 17,000?

And that's one reason why Michigan's economic recovery hasn't been as robust as downturns past. 'It's been brought down because government jobs are declining,' economist George Fulton.

That trend is set to continue in the future. Private sector jobs are projected to rise by 35,300 in 2012, 35,500 in 2013 and 52,000 in 2014. But government job declines will offset growth in all three years, according to the U of M forecast, bringing the overall projected total for the state to 26,000 jobs in 2012, 28,500 jobs in 2013 and 46,800 jobs in 2014.

And Michigan's unemployment rate isn't projected to slip below 9 percent, on average, until 2014.

So while the right-wing economic argument -- that has practically become accepted as fact -- is that government doesn't create jobs, the reality is that it does. And cutting government has a real economic impact, and it's not always positive." (emphasis added)

This is the Michissippification of Michigan, plain and simple.

READER:
Poorest families hit 1,000 times harder than rich by Michigan tax changes (Rob South Feb 1, 2012) and Report: Tax Changes Hit Low-Income Families the Hardest (MLHS Feb 2012)

See Also: Michigan Republicans say Taxes are a Sin. But Taxing the Poor to Prop Up, Bail Out, Corporate Cronies Isn't?  -- Discover Michissippi’s (Michigan's) Corporate Bosses: The Elites Who Now Run Snyder & the GOP Super Majority Legislature  -- The Free Fire Kill Zone: Snyder’s War on Michigan’s Real People

Original.

Michigan Republicans say Taxes are a Sin. But Taxing the Poor to Prop Up, Bail Out, Corporate Cronies Isn't?

Taking My Money for Taxes is a “SIN”: TeaPartisans must be squirming over Snyder’s Billion Dollar “SIN”; Taxing Working Folk to Prop Up, Bail Out, Corporate Cronies

HOW CAN MICHISSIPPI'S TEAPUBLICANS NOT SQUIRM & SUFFER HEARTBURN WHEN THEY CONDONE THE SAME KIND OF POLITICALLY MOTIVATED TAXING "SIN" THAT THE THEY ACCOST & ACCUSE THE DEMOCRATS OF DOING-COERCING HIGHER TAXES-TO THE DETRIMENT OF THE TAXPAYER?

When government removes money from consumers it is a taxing act that reduces money in the private economy, resources that would otherwise have been used to produce valuable private-sector demands for goods or services. Boss Rick Snyder and The Business Leaders for Michigan are instead forcing UNPRECEDENTED/HUGE NEW TAXES on working people and the poor; these new revenues are them used to produce governmental outputs which in the case of Snyder's slick re-distribution of Michiganders personal funds-via coerced taxation on previously tax-sheltered (from state personal income taxes) hard earned pensions (delayed compensation) and (carefully garnered and saved for senior years) annuity income- adds crassly and brazenly to the bottomlines of those who contributed directly and generously to the Nerd's 2008 campaign for governor. It's payback time!

What kind of specious "shared sacrifice" for business is this?

The private-sector outputs projected by the Snyder geeks may never be produced because resources available to the consumers are instead being used to produce a massive, billion dollar plus business welfare handout. One pension dollar has the ability to turn around to the tune of $6.49 in the state's marketplace. To intercept that taxpayers' personal income...to direct it onto business bottom lines by an overly generous partisan "gift" of a much lower business tax for a few, and no taxes at all for many second tier businesses is unjust and corrupting. Meanwhile, the large stockholder corporations, especially manufacturing concerns e.g. Auto Production, will take a new tax hit. How does that create more good pay jobs? Snyder's faulty scheme has the ability to take a big, big bite out of Michigan's necessary commercial cycles.

These soon-to-be-forgone customer/demand dollars being taken from the worker, the retiree, the poor, the schools and our children, especially those supported on welfare, is a political folly; a costly blow to the very corporate and business lobbyists who tell the public this upward redistribution they rammed through the TeaPublican Super-Majority Legislature, is the answer to Michigan's recovery. It's a lie.

Taking taxpayers hard earned wages and savings to outright "gift" those precious, limited dollars to Snyder's overpaid CEO cronies-how is that just and right?

WHEN THE TEAPUBLICAN'S NERDONOMICS PRODUCES INCOME RE-DISTRIBUTION WHICH IS UPWARD... IT ISN'T CONSIDERED A RE-DISTRIBUTION? IT'S NOT LABELED "A TAKING"?

Sez Who?

DELUSION & GREED ARE THE MOST PALTRY OF PUBLIC POLICY MOTIVATORS!
WHAT KIND OF FUNNY HERB IS IN THE TEAPARTISAN'S CUP OF TEA?

LOCOWEED DELUSION & GREED MAKE FOR DISASTROUS PUBLIC POLICY


Original.

Nerd Snyder: Nada Jobs (Governor Rick Snyder: No New Jobs for Michigan)

Michissippians are increasing feeling mounting pressures in their personal financial stress and nervousness about their futures; not only their own futures, but those of their children and grandchildren. They are frustrated and angry with Rick Snyder, who promised to be a quick and thorough solution to the state's economic downturn and its one state depression.

Snyder promised moderate and reasonable re-inventive, pro-active scenarios designed to cure our economic ills and now for one entire year, the one MAJOR area of greatest concern: JOBS, Snyder has been purposefully neglected. Meanwhile, anti-family, anti-worker, anti-public service mavens carve out entire sections of our economy for private gain.

WE GET IT NOW
Let things go south/go sour as far as possible, then come in with radical disaster capital style-solutions. We got the Wild West of American Legislative Exchange Council Corporate "put and take" legislation: Everything business wants, nothing for the 99 % who are essentially all of us.

2011 was the year of the TeaPublicans and Snyder played both ARSONISTS AND FIREMEN with the economy and the general welfare of our citizens. They ravished and defiled democratic principles.

NO JOBS and attendant UNSUSTAINABLE LEVELS OF UNEMPLOYMENT face the nervous populace and Nerd Snyder smirks at us; just wait he has a plan! We have been promised on jobs and an upsurge in manufacturing, yet the Nerd is NADA on progress in this area!

The TeaPublican SuperMajority in Lansing is on a vicious rampage; delivered in large part by outside forces: Dick Armey, Charles and David Koch (KOCH, DAVID (NY), donated $988,604 to MI GOP related PAC's) pushed the Americans for Prosperity, its efforts headed up by Ruppert's/ FOX's infamous Dick Morris. Capitalizing on angry people, who would come out to shout and banish side arms, gin up their neighbors at the breakfast bar or the local dive-they succeeded in pulling off a classic astroturf rebellion-the Michigan legislative elections of 2010. This was and is a one time event!

These TP/ non-participating Libertarian-leaning curmudgeons in biker garb and beer caps are a natural extension of ABATE and fans of the aging, amoral, obscene/punk/pundit /rocker, Ted Nugent. Their Bagger Themes: We Got Ours! We fight all taxes. Just leave us alone. Michissippi: A state inhabited by these types and some nearly three dozen radical, armed, extremist militia groups is headed in a hellacious and destructive direction.

Allowing TeaPartisans who pander and pony up to the Corporatocracy has not brought relief from unemployment nor has it resulted in new industry, manufacturing and or jobs. In fact, one of the corporations represented on the Board of Directors for Business Leaders for Michigan, American Axle, is pulling up, leaving a gapping hole in Michigan's manufacturing base and with the loss of 500 jobs (on Snyder's ticket) that's a move that has a multiplier of at least 6 additional jobs lost elsewhere in the economy. That's as many as 3,000 Michigan JOBS GONE!


Original.

Discover Michissippi’s (Michigan's) Corporate Bosses: The Elites Who Now Run Snyder & the GOP Super Majority Legislature

These Business Leaders for Michigan Run and ran/created Snyder and put him over on an unwitting public. BLM pulls the strings on their sock puppets in the GOP Super Majority Legislature. Get to know who they are: they are openly listed on p. 46 the Business Leaders for Michigan pdf which can be found online in the Michigan Business 'Turnaround Plan'. The LIST is BELOW.


It's been THE BUSINESS LEADERS' TURNAROUND PLAN FOR MICHIGAN that has been the punch card/script for the unprecedented, dramatic, and entirely dangerous 2011 Legislation that has driven Rick Snyder and the largely inexperienced and incompetent TeaPublican Super Majorities in the Michigan House and Senate into dangerous malicious "mischief"

The BLM are betting heavily, thinking they know best and can dictate nearly everything for Michigan's 99%ers: wages, contracts, health coverage, working conditions. They believe the divine economic right right to "pickpocket" the poor, the kids, the retired at-will. As they say: "Money talks, everything else walks." Or as Mitt Romney has alluded to the old saying: "If you owe the bank a thousand dollars, the bank owns you; if you owe the bank a million dollars, you own the bank."

Keep a highlighter in hand when you scroll down the list of nearly 80 BLM Board Members and underscore those among the BLM leadership who are or are closely aligned/allied/family to the list of Michigan OnePercenter honor roll (via Forbes Magazine). Six of Michigan's OnePercenters are there. No surprise!


List of 1% in the Business Leaders for Michigan:

DAVID W. JOOS
CMS Energy Corporation

JOSÉ MARIA ALAPONT   
Federal Mogul Corporation

G. MARK ALYEA
Alro Steel Corporation

THOMAS A. AMATO   
Metaldyne Corporation

GERARD M. ANDERSON   
DTE Energy Company

JON E. BARFIELD   
The Bartech Group, Inc.

ALBERT M. BERRIZ   
McKinley, Inc.  

MARK J. BISSELL
BISSELL Inc.

DAVID P. BOYLE     
PNC Financial Services Group

KIETH COCKRELL 
Bank of America  

MARY SUE COLEMAN 
University of Michigan

ROBERT S. CUBBIN
Meadowbrook Insurance Group, Inc

KURT L. DARROW
La-Z-Boy Incorporated

DAVID C. DAUCH   
American Axle & Manufacturing

DOUGLAS L. DeVOS
Amway

J. PATRICK DOYLE
Domino’s Pizza, Inc.

JAMES E. DUNLAP
Huntington

ANTHONY F. EARLEY, JR
DTE Energy Company

JEFF M. FETTIG
Whirlpool Corporation

WILLIAM CLAY FORD, JR
Ford Motor Company 

YOUSIF B. GHAFARI
Ghafari Associates, LLC

DAN GILBERT
Quicken Loans

ALFRED R. GLANCY III  
Unico Investment Compa

STEPHEN E. GORMAN
Delta Air Lines, Inc

JAMES P. HACKETT
Steelcase Inc.

RONALD E. HALL     
Bridgewater Interiors, LL

RICHARD G. HAWORTH
Haworth

CHRISTOPHER ILITCH   
Ilitch Holdings, Inc.  

MICHAEL J. JANDERNOA
Perrigo Company

MILES E. JONES
Dawn Food Products, Inc

HANS-WERNER KAAS   
McKinsey & Company

JOHN C. KENNEDY
Autocam

BLAKE W. KRUEGER
Wolverine World Wide, Inc.

TIMOTHY D. LEULIETTE   
Dura Automotive Systems, Inc. 

ANDREW N. LIVERIS
The Dow Chemical Company

DANIEL J. LOEPP     
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan

STEPHEN P. MacMILLAN
Stryker Corp.

BEN C. MAIBACH III   
Barton Malow Company

RICHARD A. MANOOGIAN   
Masco Corporation  

FLORINE MARK   
The WW Group  

SARAH L. McCLELLAND   
Chase  

CHARLES G. McCLURE   
ArvinMeritor, Inc.  

HANK MEIJER
Meijer, Inc.

MICHAEL MILLER
Google, Inc.

JOHN T. MONTFORD
General Motors Company

MARK D. MORELLI   
Energy Conversion Devices, Inc.

MARK A. MURRAY
Meijer, Inc.

ATHLEEN H. NASH
Citizens Bank

JAMES B. NICHOLSON   
PVS Chemicals, Inc.

JERRY JAY NOREN  
Wayne State University

THOMAS D. OGDEN  
Comerica, Inc.

JAMES O’LEARY   
Kaydon Corporation  

WILLIAM U. PARFET
MPI Research

CYNTHIA J. PASKY  
Strategic Staffing Solutions

ROGER S. PENSKE  
Penske Corporation  

WILLIAM F. PICKARD
Global Automotive Alliance

SANDRA E. PIERCE  
Charter One  

GERRY PODESTA
BASF Corporation

CHARLES H. PODOWSKI
The Auto Club Group  

STEPHEN R. POLK  
R. L. Polk & Co.  

JOHN RAKOLTA, JR.    
Walbridge   

CARL D. ROEHLING   
SmithGroup

ROBERT E. ROSSITER
Lear Corporation

DOUG ROTHWELL  
Business Leaders for Michigan

RICHARD F. RUSSELL 
Amerisure Mutual Insurance Company

GARY D. RUSSI  
Oakland University  

ALAN E. SCHWARTZ 
HONIGMAN

J. DONALD SHEETS
Dow Corning Corporation

BRAD SIMMONS
Ford Motor Company

LOU ANNA K. SIMON, Ph.D.  
Michigan State University

DONALD J. STEBBINS   
Visteon Corporation 

ROBERT S. TAUBMAN
The Taubman Company
   
SAMUEL VALENTI III   
TriMas Corporation   

STEPHEN A. VAN ANDEL
Amway

MICHELLE L. VAN DYKE
Fifth Third Bank  

TIMOTHY WADHAMS   
Masco Corporation  

BRIAN C. WALKER
Herman Miller, Inc.

WILLIAM H. WEIDEMAN
The Dow Chemical Company

EDWARD E. WHITACRE, JR.
General Motors Company

WILLIAM C. YOUNG   
Plastipak Holdings, Inc.



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Michissippi (Michigan) 2011 in Review: Political & Commercial Oppression Inverts Local Control

Michissippian TeaPublican Super Majorities have struck a death blow to the heart of Local Control/the sovereignty of Local Option-freedom whereby local political jurisdictions, typically counties or municipalities, can decide by popular vote...and govern concerning issues within their borders. C. G Bateman, in Nicaea and Sovereignty:

"For centuries past, the idea that a state could be sovereign was always connected to its ability to guarantee the best interests of its own citizens." .

Thus, if a state could not act in the best interests of its own citizens, it could not be thought of as a "sovereign" state." Michigan is no longer a sovereign state (by this standard: "the best interests of its own citizens"). State government that acts in the best interests of its citizens honors and respects local control at the community level.

Michissippi has backslid downward into a state run by, for, and in control of the demands of big business (Business Leaders for Michigan & The Michigan Chamber of Commerce), rich One Percenter elites, and heartless inexperienced and under-qualified political hacks.

Heed the warning of Ayn Rand in this regard:

"We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force."
-- Ayn Rand

TeaPublicans have established Lansing Central Planning and Dictatorial Control in this terrible year of reckless and extravagant partisan/corporate legislative advantage. The rights of Michissippi's minority have been trampled into oblivion- popular sovereignty has been legislated away.

In our republic government is under the control of the people, or some significant portion of them, the citizens retain sovereignty over the government not vice versa.

Michissippi has in one tragic year reached what Ayn Rand would call a state of "inversion." All is not well as we enter the new year and more radical right mischief and corporate merrymaking at working people's expense.

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The Last ‘Normal’ Michigan Christmas Before Michissippi’s Inevitable Economic Collapse/Consumer Demand Implosion

Misanthropic Bean-Counter Herr Snyder & His Marauding Michissippian Münchausen Cronies - corporate shills and hatchet men - have done-this-state-in for a moldy bowl of Corporate welfare and unfair advantage ranging into the BILLIONS of taxpayer monies siphoned off to themselves.

The natural and moral birthright of hardworking men and women has been devoured by the A.L.E.C./Mackinac Center's HIGHROLLER HOGS; pursuing unjust profits and corrupt advantage. A pox on their achievements! Michigan holds the sad infamy of being "driven to the poor house" with its own GOP/TeaPublican Know Nothings having a heavy foot on the accelerator!

Many of us wondered why that humongous pink HOG was left to wallow at the Capitol Grounds for weeks last year. Now we know. It was a prophetic and chilling PR symbol that the HOGS with the BIG BUCKS had come to Lansing to devoir the assets and living-wage jobs of Michigan's Middle Class, and trample under cloven huff the poor, the veteran, and disadvantaged-whom they blame as "self-depriving" and "undeserving."

The BIG LIE as told by Nerd Rick Snyder is that he was compelled to re-invent our GREAT STATE.
The Nunce Snyder and henchmen were/and are not entitled to control of such an enormous task. This State is not the TeaPublicans to, reconnoiter, dismantle, and re-make. They have no authority to such power over our lives and quality of living; legislatively plundering our property rights and sacred freedoms in any manner that superbly pleases Herr Snyder and his ruthless handlers-a very cleverly, behind-the-scenes imperial cabal led by his very own transition team leader, Doug Rothwell, President & CEO, BUSINESS LEADERS FOR MICHIGAN.

Alexis Charles Henri Maurice Clerel, le Comte de Tocqueville: The Warning & the Democratic Citizens' Pledge: 

"Never invest any number of my fellow creatures with UNLIMITED AUTHORITY"

"If it be admitted that a man, possessing ABSOLUTE POWER, may misuse that that power by wronging his adversaries, why should A MAJORITY not be liable to the same reproach?"

"Men are not apt to change their character by agglomeration; nor does their patience in the presence of obstacles increase with the consciousness of their strength. And for these reasons I can never willingly invest any number of my fellow creatures with that UNLIMITED AUTHORITY which I should refuse to any one of them." 

-- Sage advice from Alexis de Tocqueville

THE LAST WORD: Herr Snyder has become trapped in Machiavellianism: Politics that is amoral and that acts by any means, however unscrupulous. Such acts Snyder et. al. believes can justifiably be used in achieving political/corporate power/anti-majoritian power and in the enactment of unjust laws over and against their rivals, adversaries, and opponents to achieve Snyder and company's own goals and objectives.

Now, Christmas 2011 soon becomes a faint "Christmas Past" for Michissippi: A state enslaved to untoward TeaPublican power and rampant corporate/business GREED. God help us all!


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Socialist (Gov Rick) Snyder: Forcing Michissippi (Michigan) into “Central Planning”

Governor Rick Snyder and TeaPublicans have coerced Michigan into "Central Planning" creating out-of-control "Snyder Socialism"- the very antithesis of everything sacred to moral conservatism.

Liberal Generosity and Goodwill: Too Soft for Harsh Punishment Fanatics and Greedy Corporatists

The triumph of liberalism is represented by generosity and goodwill over and against the TP'er's crude demoralization, the devastation of rampant corporate GREED and rise of social evil.

Michissippi as Snyder's reinvention substitution of Socialist Central Control and Lansing planning for local control and citizen led democracy.

Making the business god supreme, and God's people the lessers is a dangerous tact. Takers v. the men and women of family and community: monied men are enriched, the "real" people of ordinary life (99%'ers) are defrauded and robbed-their American Dream is mortally assaulted!

Snyder's cynical "Central Planning" impacts the state in many viral ways; (e.g. meaning those who demand a teacher go it alone, without support of his or her fellow professionals in a mutual association) thus TP'ers are intent on inflicting great harm.

Snyder and the TeaPublicans have risen in radical success because THEY HAVE CROSSED THE LINE HAVING ASSUMED THE POWER TO TAKE FROM THE CITIZENS OF THIS STATE STATUS, INCOME, RIGHTS, AND SAVINGS. TP'er anger generated power is corrupting and evil.

Teachers have been the Rad Right Target for over 30 years, only now (when the Repubican Party has run out of genuine moral compass and ethical standards) has this shameful "take-down" possible.

This America-wide attack on public school teachers and their hard-earned rights and previous status as professionals is a egregious coup d'état, mounted in large part by mega-wealthy who dwell in the upper tiers of that now infamous 1% who have managed to manipulate and control the legislative processes and lawmaking over decades (as per the American Legislative Exchange Council - A.L.E.C.) into a rarefied universe/galaxy of great greed and societal evil.

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Michigan's Nerd (Rick Snyder) came to office as a chancery candidate; a true chicane, a man unwilling to be straight forward and honest- reveal what he had in store for the state. Rick was willing to accept the cloak: "moderate" even embrace the endorsement of former Governor William Milliken - thus bringing moderates and independent voters in tow. However, those most "in-the-know" knew that the "Nerd" was intent upon inflicting great harm and devastation specifically on the teaching profession... and privately said so.

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It was the backing of the Business Leaders for Michigan that a key junctures moved Snyder to the forefront and won him the GOP nomination; ushered him through the mine field that was the TeaPartisan uprising that occurred at the 2010 GOP statewide nominating convention, where Snyder was jeered/booed and his nominee for lieutenant governor booed and insulted and very nearly removed from the ticket at the Breslin Center in East Lansing.

Taking down unions is a very negative and foreboding event. When this happens greater evils ensue. For Michigan and America the outcome will be as dire and as threatening as it has been for other times and places.

Economist Friedrich von Hayek, During the Depression Years, WARNED ABOUT "CENTERAL PLANNING" AS THE ROAD TO SERFDOM:

"Hayek did indeed tell us...at a time when that message was deeply unfashionable. In 1937, in the wake of the Great Depression and with capitalism and democracy under siege from communism and fascism, he published an academic article entitled "ECONOMICS AND KNOWLEDGE," which pointed out that free markets were not just a political construct, as many critics claimed, but remained the best way of coordinating scattered information.

"Seven years later, when most of the world's major economies were under unprecedented central control, Hayek published THE ROAD TO SERFDOM, a damning indictment of socialism and state planning that once more, this time in plain English, laid out the fundamental advantage of the free market: by allowing millions of decision makers to respond individually to freely determined prices, it allocates resources-LABOR, CAPITAL, AND HUMAN INGENUITY-IN A MANNER THAT CAN'T BE MIMICKED BY A CENTRAL PLAN, HOWEVER BRILLIANT THE CENTRAL PLANNER."

How very odd that Professor Gary Wolfram, from his lair at bucolic Hillsdale College, should miss the fact that our "Nerd" governor and the corporate inspired and FOX (a Rupert Murdock faux front for THE ONE PERCENTER S of big wealth) organized and sponsored the TeaPartisan uprising that has done great harm to our state via A.L.E.C. plug and play legislation and by means of the threat of being TP'ed in primaries has missed the reality that we in Michigan have been ushered into "Central planning."

The newbie legislative TP'ers are hate and fear-filled fanatics. They've imposed "central planning" on Michigan, preempted local "market forces" as per collective bargaining at the local school district level and with local municipalities -as in negotiations for first responders, firefighters and police held with neighbors and local community members.

Former uber-conservative state Senator Jack Welborn made it clear in 1993 that the state take-over of the local school operating funding mechanism (school operations funding) was tantamount to an important "tool" to force changes in the public school system which were henceforth to come "top-down" from bureaucraticLansing-as central control.

The TeaPartisan GOP legislature has taken Michigan in a radically socialist direction by the very means of punitive state legislation concentrating decision making within the TP/A.L.E.C. dominated legislative-a virtual stranglehold over all three branches of Michigan government: the legislature, the supreme court, and the executive branch.


Local control is kaput! Gone!

Even more shocking and more deeply threatening is THE TEAPUBLICAN USE OF THE STATE'S POLICE POWERS TO TAKE OVER LOCAL UNITS OF GOVERNMENT AND ACT IN A SUPER-DICTATORIAL WAY TO ACHIEVE SUBJECTIVE GOALS OF THOSE CENTRAL PLANNING EXECUTIVES FROM LANSING. This is a complete and total denial of the very principles the GOP and the public have held so dear so long.

Michigan's "greatest generation" fought to protect democracy as we once knew it. Now the 1%er Corporatocracy and its poltical lackeys have arisen to dominate and control their grandchildren. The economic elites have stolen the future.

Their grandchildren are not going to take it anymore, they are organizing to Occupy Wall Street until there is real change in how wealth is permitted by pro-business legislation to dominate and suppress the workers and middle class.

The Lansing TeaPartisans are anathema to democracy and local control.

Rick Snyder's "central control" is comprised of usurpation and domination of wages, benefits, and working conditions. SNYDER SOCIALISM IS REVISIONIST & REGRESSIVE, thus he's a danger to Michigan's well being. SNYDER'S "ROAD TO SERFDOM" HAS DESTROYED FREEDOM & THE LOCAL FREE MARKET FORCES IN MICHIGAN.

Michissippi is Snyder's reinvention and it is totally unacceptable, un-democratic.

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Who needs the Koch Brothers? We’ve Got Rick Snyder, ALEC and his “Buffo” Team of Privatizers!

Michissippi is rife with the American Legislative Exchange Council (A.L.E.C.) inspired profit-takers who are stripping communities and workers in our state for profit and power. Snyder's reinvention is a simple copy-cat operation of a very disturbing national right-wing coup.

Get the lowdown on "ALEC Exposed" at @ http://alecexposed.org/wiki/ALEC_Exposed ("...a Trove of Over 800 'Model' Bills-Secretly Voted on by Corporations to Rewrite Your Rights").

Revelations about the American Legislative Exchange Council Are Sweeping the Blogosphere & Media
Stories are breaking daily across the nation detailing and revealing the deep inroads that profit-taking corporations have accomplished right- in-the-open. The huge number of "model" bills that a combine of aggressive corporations has pushed into law throughout the nation the AMERICAN LEGISLATIVE EXCHANGE COUNCIL. It's leadership laughs off the ungoing and expanding exposé, saying its functions are simply business-as-usual. The standard defense raised by A.L.E.C. is: We are just an ordinary think tank group, we don't lobby for corporations.

Surpirse, Surprise...A.L.E.C. doesn't need to "lobby," ITS LEGISLATIVE MEMBERS, 2,000 COUNTRY-WIDE, ARE THE UNDERLYING CORPORATIONS'OWN SPECIALIZED "LOBBY" THEMSELVES. The A.L.E.C. wolf lives comfortably, quitely RIGHT INSIDE in the legislative henhouse!

Corporate-Controlled Democracy is No Democracy At All
And so it is. The subversive Radical-Right front group, A.L.E.C., has been chipping away at the civil structure of America for over 40 years. Determined to bring down government and communities as we have known them; only to replace democracy with "CORPORATE CONTROLLED DEMOCRACY"- KNOW AS Corporatocracy,(Explained in " social theories that focus on conflicts and opposing interests within society, denotes a system of government that serves the interest of, and may be run by, corporations and involves ties between government and business. Where corporations, conglomerates, and/or government entities with private components, control the direction and governance of a country (or state), including carrying out economic planning notwithstanding the 'free market' label. " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatocracy )

Learn This Term
You are going to be in a fight-to-the-finish with corporatists, for every aspect of community and local control. CORPORATOCRACY designated every public function as a convertible source of Private Gain and Enhanced Wealth and Power.

Looting the Commons
This "looting"-via- legislation that has transpired in Michissippi under the Nerd Snyder and his hoard of privatizers. Ours is just one state's example of a wave of DISASTER CAPITALISM sweeping the country. The Bush Recession/Depression has brought the nation low-politically vulnerable. For the THE DISASTER CAPITALISTS in Lansing this is as Milton Freidman so bluntly put it: A great "opportunity."

Corporatocracy Thrives On Volatility, & This Is A Time of Great Volatility.

Michissippi's TeaPublican Super Majority Is Riddled with A.L.E.C. Gophers & Fellow Travelers
Many of Michissippi's legislators are A.L.E.C. Members or affliated, many ex-legislators are A.L.E.C. alumni, many others are simply willing "tools" of A.L.E.C.- as is Rick Snyder himself. They have been "channeling" specific A.L.E.C. MODEL BILLS WORD-FOR-WORD OR WITH SLIGHT MODIFICATIONS into Michissippi codified law. It's the Koch Bros.' et. al. means of getting things done via legislators who are simple conduits for PROFIT-MAKING CORPORATE LEGISLATION-the process of profitization.


Lazy Legislators Love A.L.E.C.'s Plug & Play Bill Mill
It's been "plug and play" "model" bill time in Lansing. Outside forces have all the say. Communities and the general public are blocked and locked out of the entire process other than to protest or to mount recalls against the crippling and dangerous outcomes these proposed A.L.E.C. bills pose to our future and economic survivability.
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Under Rick Snyder corporate usurpations have been greatly expanded; especially with the Snyder/Dillon enhanced EFM, (Emergency Finance Manager Act) which gives "firms"- corporations and corporatists-dictatorial powers; abilities which confront public officials-who are summarily stripped of elected powers and constitutional control, and other actions trampling upon people's basic rights. All-the-while, Michissippi corporatist legal firms and others are set up to mop up profits and create monopolies.

It's Time to Stand Up to Michissippi's Corporatocracy & Its Usurpation & Power Grab, via A.L.E.C.

"(The 1st Amendment) does not intend to guarantee men freedom to say what some private interest pays them to say for its own advantage. It intends only to make men free to say what, as citizens, they think."
-- Alexander Meiklejohn, Philosopher & Educator (1872-1964)

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Jabs, Jabs, and More Jabs - No Interest in Jobs, Jobs, Jobs... from Gov Rick Snyder or Michigan Republican Super-majority

The hidebound lemmings in the TeaPublican super-majority continue their herd-instinct march into the deep Sargasso sea. As the aggressive actions of the GOP Legislature continue to conduct Class Warfare on public service and due process, good jobs are being replaced and taken from loyal personnel as a way to garner profit for the elites.

Massive taxes are placed on the elderly and the poor are shortshifted from supplemental survival monies, foreclosures march on, and in a bold and stone-cold stroke, Michigan's curmudgeon TeaPublicans cut un-employment short- amazingly in our state hardest hit by job loss. The bail-outs that saved GM and Chrysler are railed against.

In Grand Rapids, the backroom/controlling elites have created a huge monopoly in health care by the combining of previously competing medical services. Now, years on, they are in financial straits. Their efforts to gobble up regional hospitals in places as far away as Traverse City have failed. Doctors outside the monopoly warn that the conglomerate is driving up costs, not bringing relief or reduced expenses.

The money-men of Grand Rapids, so critical of public education and public service, have a controlling hand in the Mackinac Center's on-going crusade to "fix Michigan." MacCenter is the JAB factory, not the JOBS source. The Center is fixing Michigan alright! Their greedy and grabby "fixes" are working against the Middle Class and ultimately are helping to bring down the standard of living for the state. Jabs from Spectrum Health are not producing jobs.

For 6 months the TeaPublicans have manned the reprisal legislative wrecking ball. All the prime targets of the greedy elites have been hit. More Jobs? No jobs creation legislation has made the docket. However, jobs reduction and jobs handicapping has been center stage; this is what they are really most centered on.

The jobs score card as of today, far fewer jobs, more furloughs, more pink slips, more economic distress and recession.

Firemen, social workers, DOT employees, state police, corrections personnel, local police and dispatchers, teachers have been given the TeaPublican shaft. These key personnel are treated with the most rude disrespect. How will the new feelings of "positiveness" called for by faux positive Rick Snyder ever overcome the acrimony and hard feelings that will survive the Nerd's tenure and taint the every possibility of co-operation and collaboration to bring Michigan back long into the future?


Jobs, Jobs, Jobs was the false flag under which the conniving Business Leaders of Michigan laid out in their successful stealth campaign to place a "corporatist compliant" Snyder in the Capitol as "their man" - to benefit their proprietary special interests and procure larger profits.

Walhalla-their prize: a nearly $3 billion taxpayer bailout to fatten their bottomlines. Not bad for starters!

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs...Snyder where are the Jobs you promised?

Where is the emergency legislation to create and import those jobs Michigan needs rigtht now; Today ?

This Governor and a far rad legislature are far more committed to JABS than JOBS.

If JOBS were their top priority then why waste precious time on JABS?

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