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We Are Who We Take Money From Part 2

by: susanthe

Tue May 18, 2010 at 20:02:56 PM EDT
In We Are Who We Take Money From Part One I took a look at the wisdom of having Wal-Mart as a sponsor of a NHDP event. It turns out that the same event was also sponsored by GE, The Genesee & Wyoming RR, Unitl, and Fidelity Investments aka FMR.  
susanthe :: We Are Who We Take Money From Part 2
General Electric/GE is one of the top manufacturers of nuclear weapons. They also build nuclear power plants, and are one of the leading suppliers of depleted uranium, which is being used in Iraq and Afghanistan. GE is currently engaged in a court battle. They're challenging the Federal Superfund law. It seems that being forced to clean up their messes (and they've needed to be forced on numerous occasions) is hurting their stock prices. I'm ashamed that my party (I'm still a registered Democrat...for now)  is taking money from this evil corporation.

The Genesee & Wyoming Railroad is actually a conglomerate of a bunch of small railroads with lines in Canada, Australia, Bolivia, Mexico, the Netherlands, and the US. The CEO is John Hellmann, who used to be an investment banker with Lehman Bros. He worked for Weyerhauser Corp. in Japan and China. I didn't find anything sinister - but I may not have dug deep enough.

Unitl is a utility company. In NH, they recently decided they'd like to raise their rates. The rate increase for residential customers would be 9%. Unitl is asking for this increase because their revenue is down, due to customer conservation.

Fidelity Investments/FMR - are #2 in political campaign contributions from the security and investments sector. They are second only to Goldman Sachs.

As it happens, the NHDP is now sharing their funding sources with GOP candidates. Senate candidate Bill Binnie has received $4,800 from Wal-Mart so far, and Ovide Lamontagne has received $2,500 from FMR.

I'm aware that times are tough - but sharing donors with the other guys leads cynical folks to reiterate the view that there isn't a dime's bit of difference between the two parties. We can't take the moral high ground if we're feeding from the same corporate trough.  
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We Are Who We Take Money From Part 2 | 6 comments
FMR (0.00 / 0)
If FMR is part of Fidelity, then Fidelity has covered its tracks pretty well.  The documents I have seen just suggest it was a couple of smalltime scammers who managed to avoid getting caught.
it's a different FMR (0.00 / 0)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F...

Fidelity Management and Research LLC (FMR LLC), known as Fidelity Investments, is one of the largest mutual fund groups in the world. It was, founded in 1946 and serves North American investors. Fidelity Ventures is its venture capital arm. Fidelity International Limited (FIL), is an international affilliate founded in 1969 serving most countries in the rest of the world.

I suspect FMR is a  common acronym.  

[ Parent ]
DAM: Mothers Against Dyslexia (0.00 / 0)
The shadowy entity at the heart of the current ponzi scheme scandal is actually FRM, not FMR.  My bad.  I wdn't put it past those rascals at Fidelity to be involved somehow, however.
[ Parent ]
FM n/t (0.00 / 0)


note to close readers: this might be sarcastic so think twice before reading to candidates for use in their attacks on each other
[ Parent ]
especially important (0.00 / 0)
in light of Wal-Mart's latest earning's report.

Net sales were $99.8 billion, up 6 percent from $94.2 billion in the same period last year.

How many billions are enough when you don't even give your employees basic benefits?  There needs to be a special tax bracket on profits (75%) for businesses that make this much money and give so little back to their employees while simultaneously ruining any community in which they build a store.

Where is campaign finance reform here in NH? (4.00 / 1)
We have to take corporate money out of politics. I got an invite to a ball park fundraiser for the Governor. One of the sponsors is Nextera Energy Seabrook which looks harmless until you look it up see that it is a subsidiary of FPL Group, Florida Power and Light,owner of Seabrook Station.  
We Are Who We Take Money From Part 2 | 6 comments

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