Website for Part II of the Auto Parts Industry Price-Discrimination Lawsuit - Coalition for a Level Playing Field, LLC, et al. v. AutoZone, Inc., et al., for Alleged Violation of Sections 2(a)/2(f) and 2(d)/2(e) of the Robinson-Patman Act, Index No. 04 CV 08450, Filed 10/27/04 - Putting Everything Together for Anyone Interested in Understanding What Is Happening to Small Business, the Economy for the Middle Class, and the Constitutional Rights of U.S. Citizens

Date of Initial Publication: 11/16/05; Date of Last Revision: 05/08/07 20:00

Note: All of the statements in any of the litigation documents made available in this website are allegations, as distinguished from statements of fact. The obvious purpose of having allegations below, instead of statements of asserted fact, is to avoid unnecessary litigation.

Litigation Documents in the Auto-Parts Price-Discrimination Lawsuit Filed by the Plaintiffs on November 14, 2005, April 24, 2006 and May 8, 2007 and available online, at the website of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York

The event giving rise to the creation of this autoparts website is the filing of an Amended and Supplemental Complaint and papers opposing a motion to enjoin the Plaintiffs from pursuing this litigation. These papers, served and filed in the Clerk's Office on November 14, 2005, are available by link below. On April 24, 2006, the Plaintiffs filed their opposition papers to defendants' renewed motion to dismiss together with a cross motion to amend the complaint by addition of Appendix B-6.

A new judge (Richard J. Holwell) was assigned to the case and he denied defendants' motion to dismiss and granted plaintiffs' cross-motion to add Appendix B-6 to the amended complaint, by the filing of a 2nd amended complaint. This was done on May 8, 2007. Links to the 9 files are included immediately below:

  1. 1.01 MB File Size Part 1 of 2nd Amended Complaint dated May 6, 2007 - pages 1-26
  2. 1.30 MB File Size Part 2 of 2nd Amended Complaint dated May 6, 2007 - pages 27-60
  3. 901 KB File Size Part 3 of 2nd Amended Complaint dated May 6, 2007 - pages 61-84
  4. 1.16 MB File Size Part 4 of 2nd Amended Complaint dated May 6, 2007 - Appendices A and D
  5. 1.61 MB File Size Part 5 of 2nd Amended Complaint dated May 6, 2007 - Appendices B-1 thru B-5
  6. 942 KB File Size Part 6 of 2nd Amended Complaint dated May 6, 2007 - Appendix B-6

  7. 2.01 MB File Size Part 1/3 of Appendix C to 2nd Amended Complaint dated May 6, 2007
  8. 1.95 MB File Size Part 2/3 of Appendix C to 2nd Amended Complaint dated May 6, 2007
  9. 1.96 MB File Size Part 3/3 of Appendix C to 2nd Amended Complaint dated May 6, 2007

    Note: The only material change from the Supplemental and Amended Complaint dated April 24, 2006 is the addition of Appendix B-6. The rest of the 2nd Amended Complaint is the same, except for correcting "xxxx" to read 1981 and to add "B-6" at appropriate places throughout the 2nd Amended Complaint.

    At this time, the defendants can be expected to make a motion to dismiss the 2nd Amended Complaint.

    The rest of the website is devoted to putting together what every U.S. citizen should know to be able to understand what is happening to their American Dream. But first, the litigation documents:

    Documents Filed in Opposition to Defendants' Motion to Dismiss and Enjoin Based on the Jury's Decision in earlier (Part I) litigation:

    1. 793K File Size Declaration of Carl E. Person in Opposition to Defendants' Motion to Dismiss the Complaint and Enjoin Plaintiffs dated November 14, 2005 (18 pages)

    2. 1.5 MB File Size Plaintiffs' Memorandum in Opposition to Defendants' Motion to Dismiss the Complaint and Enjoin Plaintiffs dated November 14, 2005 (38 pages)

    3. 157K File Size Certificate of Service (dated November 14, 2005) of the two preceding documents on the attorneys for the moving defendants (3 pages)

    Filing of Amended and Supplemental Complaint on November 14, 2005; Additional Summons for Additional Defendants

    1. 2.0 MB File Size Amended and Supplemental Complaint dated November 14, 2005, PART ONE OF THREE PARTS (consisting of pages 1-40)

    2. 2.0 MB File Size Amended and Supplemental Complaint dated November 14, 2005, PART TWO OF THREE PARTS (consisting of pages 41-80)

    3. 2.0 MB File Size Amended and Supplemental Complaint dated November 14, 2005, PART THREE OF THREE PARTS (consisting of pages 81-94 and Appendices A, B-1, B-2, B-3, B-4, B-5 and D)

    4. 1.6 MB File Size Appendix C to Amended and Supplemental Complaint dated November 14, 2005, PART ONE OF THREE PARTS (consisting of pages 1-40)

    5. 1.6 MB File Size Appendix C to Amended and Supplemental Complaint dated November 14, 2005, PART TWO OF THREE PARTS (consisting of pages 41-80)

    6. 1.6 MB File Size Appendix C to Amended and Supplemental Complaint dated November 14, 2005, PART THREE OF THREE PARTS (consisting of pages 81-116)

    7. 157K File Size Certificate of Service (dated November 14, 2005) of the six preceding documents on the attorneys for the defendants (3 pages)

    8. 67K File Size Additional Summons in A Civil Case - Issued November 14, 2005 for 6 Additional Defendants (3 pages)

    9. 1.0 MB File Size Individual Rules, Standing Order, Electronic Case Filing Rules and Guidelines Attached for Service with Additional Summons and Amended and Supplemental Complaint Dated November 14, 2005 (21 pages)

    Filing of Plaintiffs' Opposition Papers to Defendants' Renewed Motion to Dismiss and Plaintiffs' Cross Motion to Amend Complaint with Addition of Appendix B-6 filed on April 24, 2006

    >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

    1. 2.1 MB File Size Plaintiffs' Memorandum of Law in Opposition to Defendants' Motion to Dismiss and in Support of Plaintiffs' Cross Motion to Amend Complaint dated April 24, 2006 (see next document for the table of contents)

    2. 310K File Size Table of Contents and Table of Authorities for Plaintiffs' Memorandum of Law - filed in separate electronic form due to 50 page limitation for any single document) filed on April 24, 2006

    3. 1.1 MB File Size Declaration of Carl E. Person with Exhibit A dated April 24, 2006, PART I OF TWO PARTS (see next document for Part II of the document)

    4. 1.8 MB File Size Exhibits B, C and D to Declaration of Carl E. Person dated April 24, 2006, PART II OF TWO PARTS

    5. 178K File Size Plaintiffs' Notice of Cross Motion for Leave to Amend Complaint by Addition of Appendix B-6 dated April 24, 2006

    6. 209K File Size Plaintiffs' Proof of Service of the preceding 5 documents in hard copy form dated April 24, 2006

    7. 178K File Size Cover letter to Judge Richard Owen dated April 24, 2006, with which a copy of the preceding 6 documents were sent in hard copy form

    Putting It All Together for Anyone Interested in Understanding What Is Happening to Small Business, the Economy for the Middle Class, and the Constitutional Rights of U.S. Citizens - A Preliminary Statement

    It was never intended by the persons responsible that you and the rest of the American public understand how you as a small business owner, or employee of a small or large company, or unemployed recent graduate of a college or university or as a U.S. citizen or resident, are making less money and either working harder or unable to get a job to be able to work harder than before, and watching your American Dream and civil rights slip away from you and your family.

    But there is an answer, and it is probably too complicated for most of you to take the time to comprehend. But I'll try to make it simple, and direct you to other websites of mine in which I develop the various lines of thought more fully.

    You undoubtedly will agree that to unravel what is going on you need to be able to see (or understand) where the money comes from and goes to; also, you have to understand that power is a substitute for money. In recent years, rich politicians have shown their willingness to spend $100 million of their own money to purchase a position for themselves as a state governor, U.S. Senator, mayor of a large city, and in some cases membership in the House of Representatives. Other candidates, up until recently, were the impoverished standins for the large campaign contributors and, as everyone should know, pretty much does whatever the large contributor requests or demands. Power and wealth are somewhat interchangeable, and if you have one you are able to get (or do without) the other.

    Note: Subsequent to writing the original version of this website, I have thrown my hat into the political ring in New York. I am seeking the office of Attorney General. See my websites at my campaign website and my related website to build list of Americans interested in keeping their jobs, earning more, obtaining a job or a better job, and stopping jobs from leaving the country. Also, to build an email list for my candidacy I have created a third website, website to building email list by giving members several days' notice that credit card or other payments must be made to avoid a latefee - the email notices enable me to send my campaign message with the notice. It goes without saying that I need money and volunteers in this campaign. The benefits to Americans would be formidable, because the office of the New York Attorney General is "the 2nd most powerful office in the United States", for reasons I explain in my website. See my campaign website

    [End of Note]

    Of course when you have a lot of wealth, such as being the controlling shareholder of one of the largest corporations in the world, you cannot remain at such level of wealth. You are forced into gaining more and more wealth, which basically means taking it from the public, and joining forces with competitors and enable them to divide up the combined operation with an agreed upon ratio, and then work together to take much more from the public now that there is far less competition. With competition goes price wars, and the costs of trying to offer new and improved products and services. It's much better to eliminate competition and focus on taking the public's money. It's more profitable for the already wealthy companies to do it that way, and of course devastating economically for the general public, of which 98%-99% of us are members.

    If you were rich beyond anyone's ability to count or control, and wanted to get even richer, what would you do?

    You would probably want to control as much business as you could (meaning, taking the public's money) in the United States and then extend your activities into all other countries of the world that have people and money. You need people to earn money and you need money (or oil, or diamonds) to be able to take the wealth of the hard-working people of the world away from them. What would even be better is to do it with the blessing of the U.S. government.

    The way of doing that is to buy up the major media, which has been accomplished pretty much, with most of the major media in the hands of perhaps 10 individuals, who understand their role.

    The role of the major media is not to inform the public on what it needs to know to protect itself from losing ground, from losing money, losing pensions, losing social security, or from working harder for much less money. No, the function of the major media is to omit, mislead and redirect the public away from what it should know, into safe areas, to help to ensure that the public does not understand what is happening to it, and to enlist the public in supporting diversionary issues of little consequence to the economic lords. For example, the main media offers sufficient diversionary sports reporting to absorb the energies of voters away from political issues and into the real issue for these voters as to who should win the next game, or will the glove fit? or will partial, full-term, less-than full term, incomplete, botched, no, almost none, rape-only, rape-only plus incestuous, or first trimester, or not yet end of 2nd trimester abortions are to be allowed, facilitated, encouraged, prosecuted, not prosecuted, discretionary prosecutions, or other ways of dealing with the problem, thereby knowingly diverting the voters from making the correct choices at the ballot box to prevent the politicians and their masters from stealing from the public.

    Stealing from the public goes on in a variety of ways, perhaps as many ways as you have elected politicians, but some of the schemes are far more successful than others. Wouldn't you like to know how the largest fortune has been assembled from the 1960's to the present - under the name Wal-Mart, Inc.?

    You have been reading about the evils that develop when you have concentration of wealth in the hands of Wal-Mart, but has anyone ever told you how the Wal-Mart wealth (with a value ranging from $200 billion to $250 billion because of stock-market fluctuations) was brought together during the past 45 years or so?

    If you want to learn how this was done, you can read my website on Wal-Mart and then my website on Kmart, explaining how Kmart has no hope of surviving (or it's Doomsday for Kmart and other Wal-Mart competitors). The Wal-Mart website it at How Wal-Mart Became # 1 in the World and Is Able to Lay Off Its Costs on Others, entitled "How to Stop Wal-Mart from Expanding into and Destroying Your Community; and Stopping Globalism"; and my Kmart website is at Doomsday for Kmart, entitled "Doomsday Notice! - Analysis and Forecast for Retailing Business; Major Chain Retailers Cannot Compete against Wal-Mart and Are Doomed".

    Sooner or later you should read my website on the federal antitrust statute known as the Robinson-Patman Act, enacted in 1936 for the purpose of preventing major retailers from driving smaller competitors out of business. My "RPA" website is located at Robinson-Patman Act Website.

    It is interesting to note that the current wave of criticism against Wal-Mart is directed to the evils resulting from the exercise of market power based on Wal-Mart's size, and never on how Wal-Mart was able to grow to its present size. Wal-Mart is not more efficient, contrary to popular belief. It depends on obtaining illegally-low prices from manufacturers to be able to stay in business, and put competitors out of business.

    When you have enough money to put your friends and employees into high office, you can expect a relaxation of any government activities directed against you, except if you really screw up (such as with Enron and Tyco). For the most part, when you have enough money, compliance with certain fundamental laws (such as the Internal Revenue Code, the laws requiring full disclosure by public companies, the antitrust laws, and the laws prohibiting insiders from stealing from the public company is not significantly enforced against these favored corporations by the U.S. Government. Instead, these corporations are pretty much allowed to do whatever they want. To a great extent, they are too large to regulate. There aren't enough personnel in the Internal Revenue Service to review all the records of a major corporation for the annual tax reporting, which pretty much means that the large corporation is free to report whatever taxable income it chooses. About 60% of the major corporations choose to report little or no taxable income, thereby depriving the United States of billions of dollars of needed income each year, and forcing the U.S. Government to collect that money instead from U.S. citizens directly, through additional taxation, or indirectly by reduction of services to them.

    The major corporations are getting away with grand theft on a scale difficult to comprehend, while the voters of America are sipping their beer, looking at sporting events, and listening to the talking heads explaining to voters how everything is for their benefit. Thus, it seems safe to say that typical Americans believe that the U.S. Government is functioning on their behalf, by doing a variety of things that anyone would expect an adequate Government "of the people, by the people and for the people" should be doing, such as:

    What the Typical U.S. Citizen Believes the U.S. Government Is Doing

    The U.S. Government consists of the Executive Branch (the elected President and Vice President and the President's appointees), the elected Congress (Senate and House of Representatives), the Judiciary (all "Article III" lifetime federal judges appointed or nominated by the President and confirmed with the "Advice and Consent" of the Senate; and a myriad of government agencies, headed up by political appointees of the President, with Senate approval.

    Citizens have been taught to expect or believe that the U.S. Government, through these institutions, will:

    1. Regulate the economy fairly between the competing interests of wage earners and small businesses on one hand and major corporate interests on the other hand;
    2. Administer the criminal laws equally and without any appearance of or actual unfair emphasis of enforcement activities against one group over another;
    3. Engage in war and expose U.S. citizens to death and injury in foreign countries only for legitimate self-protection reasons and not for the purpose of war profiteering, trade expansion and colonization;
    4. Enforce the nation's environmental protection law and otherwise act to protect the environment;
    5. Enforce the nation's tax laws so that everyone including major corporations selling to the U.S. market pays a fair share of taxes;
    6. Will not pass laws that permit the main media to become concentrated in the hands of so few persons that the U.S. Government can exercise control over the media through its licensing of broadcast media (television and radio);
    7. Guard the nation's borders to protect the safety and jobs of U.S. citizens and not allow millions of illegals to flow into the United States as a way of providing cheap labor and huge profits to major corporations, at the expense of U.S. citizens and for the exploitation of the illegal immigrants;
    8. Ensure that the right of U.S. citizens to vote is not compromised by fraudulent balloting procedures and by the systematic denial of voting rights to the have nots through denial of voting privileges after the 5,000,000 imprisoned have nots are released from their imprisonment;
    9. Enact legislation according to the needs of U.S. citizens more so than the needs of major corporations that may or may not have any demonstrated allegiance to U.S. citizens (viewed from the standpoint of payment of U.S. income taxes and providing of jobs to U.S. workers);
    10. Preserve and improve the safety net for U.S. citizens created after great efforts over the past 75 years (including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment insurance, student loans, job training programs, realistic bankruptcy provisions to permit a fresh start, and other public assistance programs for human beings);
    11. Protect the Constitutional rights of U.S. citizens, including basic rights of freedom of speech, freedom from unwarranted invasion of privacy of U.S. citizens, the right of habeas corpus, the right to petition the courts for a redress of grievances, freedom of religion and the freedom of not having to follow someone's else's religious beliefs; the right not to have prosecutions based on testimony coerced by threats of prosecution for failure to testify as requested; the right to a criminal system that provides judge and jury to resolve issues rather than by over prosecution followed by a plea agreement without any trial (as is the case for about 98% of persons accused of felonious conduct); and the right to own their real estate without fear of condemnation by government to turn the property over to corporate interests for their profit;
    12. Protect the public from loss of jobs to other countries, when jobs are moved for the profit of major corporations;
    13. Set interest rates that do not favor capital and major corporations over the interests of U.S. citizens (which is essentially labor and full employment);
    14. Place a value on and protect small business and the services and variations they provide to the public from being run out of business by the business practices of the major corporations (which purchase their goods at illegally low prices and drive their smaller competitors out of business, in violation of the nation's antitrust laws, including the federal Robinson-Patman Act that prohibits price discrimination);
    15. Stop corporations from becoming so large (by merger, unlawful business practices, or even lawful business practices) that the U.S. Government cannot enforce its tax, criminal, business regulatory laws against such corporations, and only do so against the smaller competitors; if a corporation is so large that it cannot be adequately regulated, the corporation should be declared a winner, and then liquidated, to permit other corporations to compete to become winners, with no corporation being permitted to become so large that the corporation is extended special privileges because of its size and importance to the economy.

      [Note: See my 46 campaign issues, most of which deal with these problems. my campaign website] [End of Note].

    What the United States Government in Fact Is Doing - NONE OF THE ABOVE

    In fact, the U.S. Government is doing none of these things any typical citizen would expect the Government to be doing. What is worse, the Government is actively seeking to take away the property, opportunities, rights and security of U.S. citizens for the benefit and profit of the world's major corporations (which may or may not be corporations owing any substantial allegiance to the United States through jobs for Americans or payment of U.S. income taxes).

    The U.S. Government has been taken over by the major corporations, to loot the United States as well as any other countries worth looting.

    Part of the looting process is to drive small businesses (owned by U.S. citizens) out of business, and take over their customers without paying the owner for his/her business.

    Hundreds of thousands of businesses have been driven out of business already, during the past 30 years or more, with the major retailers such as Wal-Mart, AutoZone, Home Depot, Barnes & Noble winding up with the customers and profits, without having to pay for such valuable additions to their businesses. The value of this transfer of wealth can be calculated by adding up the value of the stock of each of the major retailers. To start off, the value of Wal-Mart's stock ranges recently from $200 to $250 billion, and as a quick estimate the value of all major retailers might be 4 times the value of Wal-Mart - or approximately $1 trillion, taken from small businesses, including wholesalers, jobbers and retailers during the past 30 years or more. [Note: Specialty retailers have a combined stock ("cap") value of $229.3 billion as of November 21, 2005. (http://biz.yahoo.com/p/rtnonamktd.html)

    The interesting thing about this is that the major retailers are all operating at a loss. Take Kmart, for instance. With all of the added discounts, fees and allowances they get from manufacturers, Kmart is still unable to operate profitably. These discounts, fees and allowances are not given to the small competitors at all, which drives the small competitors out of business. But when Kmart receives only some of the discounts, fees and allowances being given to Wal-Mart, Kmart too is unable to survive.

    If Wal-Mart is obtaining today about $60 billion in illegal discounts, fees and allowances, it is interesting to note that Wal-Mart only shows an annual profit of about $10 billion, after taxes. If Wal-Mart suddenly had to pay the same price for its goods as being paid by its competitors, including Kmart, it would have an annual deficit of about $50 billion, and could not stay in business.

    The same is true of the other major retailers. They are permitted to remain in business only because they are given illegally low prices, that allows them to sell for less, while driving their law-abiding competitors out of business, and then take over such businesses or their former customers without compensation.

    The way of stopping this and reversing the practice is to start enforcing the federal Robinson-Patman Act, and requiring manufacturers to sell to all competitors at the same price, with discounts only to reflect actual costs saved by the manufacturer by reason of the volume of purchase involved. Today, volume discounts are hardly justified because of the ease with which production can be started and stopped, and for much lower production volumes than in the past, thanks to computer controls and software. My book Saving Main Street and Its Retailers, and related website, at Saving Main Street and Its Retailers and Related Website together with my website My "Town Attorney General" Website explain how the effect of U.S. Government enforcement can be achieved by numerous "town attorneys general" [there are none so far] enforcing the nation's laws at the lowest level of government, with sufficient aggregate effect to compel the major-corporate wrongdoers to correct their unlawful business practices or be driven out of business by these town and village law-enforcement activities against them.

    [Note: If elected as New York Attorney General, I would appoint a "town attorney general" for each of New York's 1,800 towns and villages, as a profit center for the town and its enforcer of the rights of the residents and small businesses, including their rights to enforcement of the environmental, antitrust, civil rights and various federal and state laws protecting human beings as distinguished from major corporations. [End of Note.]

    What You Can Do to Help Yourself and Your Community - Get Mayor/Council to Speak with the "Town Attorney General"

    People wonder what they can do to make things better for themselves, their family and their community. Elections every 4 years or so never seem to make a difference, other than to postpone, perhaps forever, any change for the better.

    Actually, there is something which you can do, something which could make a big difference for you, your community, and even the United States as a whole.

    What you can do is to sell my idea to the mayor or other appropriate officials of your town or village, and arrange for me to speak with them about the appointment of someone (hopefully me) as the Town Attorney General for the town or village.

    As you can see from my townattorneygeneral website, a Town Attorney General should be able to raise each year, through litigation, somewhere around $5,000 to $15,000 per family for your town, all of which could be distributed to the residents of your town.

    If your town does this successfully, it will induce other towns and villages to do the same, which will create a law enforcement mechanism at the lowest level of government to replace the scarcely-used law enforcement mechanism of the Federal and State governments.

    This is the solution needed for the United States to take back the country for its human citizens, and away from the corporate pretend citizens, which have been given Constitutional rights intended for the citizens that need food, sleep, shelter, clothing, time off, dental and health care and other amenities of life, whereas corporations with their right to live in perpetuity don't need to take time off or incur these expenses, and have an unfair advantage over human citizens, especially in their ability to dominate business and accumulate wealth, which they then use to purchase our political system and subvert it to their own use and benefit.

    If you have any questions about this (or would like a free PDF copy of my book, Saving Main Street and Its Retailers, please give me a call at 212-307-4444 or email me at Send Email to Carl E. Person.

    Basic Concepts You Need to Know to Understand What Is Happening to Your Standard of Living and American Dream

    There are basic concepts you need to recognize, and keep in mind, when analyzing what you can expect as your share of the U.S. economy, assuming you try in good faith, over your working lifetime, to earn your own way, either as the owner of a business or as the employee of one or more businesses. After 60 years of self employment and job employment, I have concluded:

    1. The Sellout. Elected governmental officials (including Governors, Senators, Representatives, Mayors, Attorneys General, District Attorneys, Sheriffs and lesser elected leaders and officials are in a position where they generally need to solicit money from the well to do and their corporations, and do in fact pay back these political financiers out of public funds (i.e., taxpayer money), and do so without wanting the public to understand how this is taking place daily and with almost every elected official.
    2. Elected Officials Are Unable and Unwilling to Pass Laws Benefiting the Public. This Sellout precludes the elected officials from doing what is needed and desired by the general electorate (meaning, you and me), because to do what is good for you and me would be detrimental to the desires and interests of the persons bribing the elected officials to vote against the interests of the public. The occasional elected official or other politician who decides to challenge this Sellout System and do the right thing is quickly eliminated by loss of position and benefits, loss of political contributions and in some instances by death-causing crash or accident. [Note: We'll see what happens with my candidacy to become New York Attorney General. End of Note.]
    3. Elected Officials Lie to Cover Up Their Sellout. Rather than being honest with the electorate, elected officials are forced into covering up their Sellout to the major corporate interests, because if they made a public announcement each time they sold their vote and influence to one or more of the major corporate interests, the public would presumably not vote for them during the next election (although with the main media no longer reporting as it should, bribed officials have little risk of the general public learning about the bribes.
    4. Never Trust an Elected Official or Politician. For the foregoing reasons, the public cannot trust any of its elected officials or politicians. Whatever they say, you can reasonably conclude that the truth is something else. Never bet any money on a politician doing what he/she promises to do, unless you have made your own arrangement to compensate the politician and even then have made sure the politician carries through with the promise.
    5. Complicity of Main Media to Withhold and Distort the Truth and to Mislead. The main media (made up of licensed television stations, licensed radio stations, daily newspapers with governmental permission to take over failing competitors, and the handful of media-holding organizations that own, control and operate the nation's main newspapers, television stations and radio stations), were allowed by governmental permission and antitrust inaction, and permissive legislation passed by Congress (including the Newspaper Preservation Act and various amendments to statutes limiting the ownership of newspapers, television stations and radio stations in various markets) to allow the main media companies to acquire more and more of the main media, until a concentration of media took place which placed control of the main media in the hands of about 7 media corporations (including Viacom, Clear Channel, Disney/ABC, Murdoch and several others). The main media, owned by some of the nation's largest corporations, have a natural interest in preserving their corporate interests, and at the same time have an interest in not turning against the system that permitted them to gain their control over a part, very critical part, of the nation's economy. Having achieved their control over this part of the economy, they are in no position to try to undermine the other major corporations in America (or the world) from gaining control over the other parts of the economy. Finally, these media corporations are still dependent on the U.S. government (or, actually, the persons who control it). The media companies need continued licensing from the Federal Communications Commission to operate their television stations and radio stations, and continued cooperation from the Justice Department for permission to acquire more and more media companies. As a result, the media companies are at least 100% aligned the persons who control the U.S. government and the other major corporations, and not with the interests of the public. The way the main media fulfills its role under these circumstances is to print very little that is critical of the government policy that allows the major corporations to expand their businesses to the detriment of the smaller competitors, American employees of the large corporations or the voting public, and instead to mislead the public by telling them that the government is doing a great job in building the economy, and that the public is doing better and better, when in fact the truth is quite different. The main media publicize statistics showing that the rich are getting richer, and tell the public falsely that they are also getting richer as a result. This falsification of economic news prevents the public from understanding how they are losing their economic interests, and how such losses are being handed over to the major corporations, that are getting richer and richer while the American public, unnecessarily, is getting poorer and poorer. Without understanding what is happening to them, the voters then put the same crooks back in office, for another four years of grand, uncontrollable theft.
    6. Governmental Agencies Are Unable to Help the Public. Government agencies are controlled at the top by political appointees of the President, and do the bidding of the President. It is illogical to expect that a federal agency is going to do the right thing for the public for a lengthy period of time, if the people who control the government don't want the agency to do the right thing. Thus, it is foolish for anyone to expect that any of the federal investigative agencies will spend much time or any significant expertise looking into issues that the people in control don't want to have investigated, such as how Wal-Mart and the other major retailers have put hundreds of thousands of wholesalers, jobbers, retailers and regional manufacturers out of business; how 9/11 took place without unforgiveable dereliction of duty or even complicity of some governmental officials and agencies; how globalization is making major corporations rich while destroying the American economy ( and causing employees to lose their jobs, homes and pensions), among other issues needing investigation.

    Students of government and war will readily recognize that if you take over control of the government, the media and the government agencies, you pretty much can do whatever you want, and your job is to main and extend your control to continue the takeover as long as possible, and take as much money for yourself and your backers as you can.

    The one area not touched upon is the judicial system. The people in control of the government also would like to get some control over the nation's judicial system. In the United States, federal judges (Article III judges in the U.S. Constitution) are appointed for life, so that the persons controlling the government cannot fire all of the judges and appoint ones to their liking. Instead, they have to wait until openings occur, and then appoint favorable judges to fill the openings. This is what the frequent battles are about with respect to appointment of U.S. Supreme Court Justices and the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. The persons in control of the government want to ensure that they have as many of the Justices predictably willing to support the programs of the persons controlling the government, and not raise technical objections to these programs. This support in the nation's highest court also helps to hand over a contested Presidential election to the right person when necessary. Another thought: If you were the President and were worried about the possibility that you might be impeached or indicted before or after leaving office, who would you like to have on the U.S. Supreme Court, and is this subject not something the President's lawyer might explain to the President? Is this the real reason that President Bush nominated his lawyer, Harriet E. Miers, to become a Justice of the Supreme Court. Because of various objections (and this does raise an issue why anyone in favor of the overall plan should object to President Bush's nomination) the nomination was withdrawn.

    The Intended, Predictable Consequences of Big Business Control of the U.S. Government and Electoral Process

    With these thoughts in mind, I now want to describe some of the consequences I have seen over the years:

    1. The government's failure to enforce the nation's antitrust laws that prohibit mergers that could substantially lessen competition or have a tendency to monopolize;
    2. The government's failure to enforce the nation's antitrust laws that prohibit large retailers from purchasing from the nation's manufacturers at per-unit prices that are lower than the per-unit prices being paid by their smaller competitors and not cost justified or meeting competition;
    3. The government's failure to enforce the nation's immigration laws thereby enabling major corporations to fire Americans and hire illegal immigrants to do the same job for substantially lower, slave wages;
    4. The government's commencement and perpetuation of armed conflict to generate multi-billion revenues for multi-national arms corporations controlled by some of the same persons controlling the U.S. government;
    5. The government's willingness to let major corporations get away with paying little or no income taxes by accepting the corporations' claims of allocating income to foreign operations and allocating expenses to the United States operations - see my website How Cities and States Can Cure Their Budget Deficits - * * * - Many Hundreds of Billions of Dollars Are Being Thrown Away Needlessly by State, City and County Governments;
    6. The government's getting the U.S. involved in armed conflict for the primary benefit of the arms and oil industry;
    7. Providing multi-billion dollar benefits to major corporations that are taking jobs away from U.S. citizens and residents;
    8. Providing government agencies and financing for multinational corporations having no demonstrable allegiance to the interests of the United States for purposes of extending their control of business into other countries, and depriving the citizens of such other countries of their natural or essential resources or both;
    9. The government's negotiation of trade agreements with other countries that benefit specific industries in the U.S., at the expense of 99.9% of the human citizens and residents of the U.S.;
    10. Failure of the government to impose tariffs needed to protect U.S. jobs, which failure results from a government policy to permit major corporations (and any corporations or businesses for that matter) to move U.S. jobs to low-wage foreign countries to enhance the corporations' profits but only by causing millions of Americans to lose their jobs, savings, sense of security, and moneys needed for retirement;
    11. The government's willingness to let major corporations move jobs to foreign countries without any penalty, or what is worse to give monetary incentives for major corporations to move U.S. jobs to certain countries such as Mexico;
    12. The government's support and financing of globalization, for the profit of large corporations and detriment of the American public;
    13. The government's steady elimination or reduction (or threatened reduction or elimination) of programs for deserving or needy American citizens (such as re-training programs, student-loan programs, bankruptcy protection to enable losing Americans to get a fresh start, healthcare programs, Social Security benefits);
    14. The government's failure to prosecute large corporations for their wrongdoing except in rare instances and then many years belatedly;
    15. The government's excessive prosecution and abusive prosecutorial practices against pushover individuals who cannot defend themselves and are forced into pleading guilty 98% of the time even though most of such persons would be found innocent if they had any realistic opportunity of taking the criminal charges to trial (see my four websites on prosecutorial abuse at (first) 1998 Prosecutorial Abuse Website # 1 - Initial Look at Abuses; (second) 2001 Prosecutorial Abuse Website # 2 - Starting to Develop Remedies for Abused Criminal Defendant; (third) 2002 Prosecutorial Abuse Website # 3 - Misuse of Forfeiture Statutes and Forfeiture Proceeds; and (fourth) 2002 Prosecutorial Abuse # 4 - The Plea-Bargaining Cancer of the Criminal Justice System and My Proposed Free-Market Remedy).
    16. Allowing major corporations to get to a size where the government then concludes that laws cannot be enforced against them because of their size; corporations that insist upon growing should not be allowed to grow too large to be regulated by law (examples: the nation's tax laws are not being enforced against the major corporations; some corporations such as Chrysler are too large to be permitted to go into bankruptcy - hence a bailout; large accounting firms cannot be prosecuted for criminal conduct because it would put them out of business; major corporate employers in New York City and elsewhere are too large to lose, so the government provides (every few years) a package of benefits to induce them to stay a few more years, which package at a minimum is equal to a refund of all state and local taxes they would have paid, which provides such large corporations with governmental subsidies that make competition with them even more difficult by the small competitors that never receive any such subsidies;
    17. The government's huge tax reduction for the wealthy to deprive the government of funding for programs needed to provide a safety net for Americans needed especially in light of other programs of the government that assist major corporations in moving U.S. jobs to other countries for the profit of the major corporations and their shareholders;
    18. The government's grant of Constitutional rights (intended for and needed by human beings) to corporations (that do not need clothing, shelter, sleep, food, education, healthcare, dental services or time off from work or funeral services) thereby creating a more efficient money-making machine capable of taking away the wealth and opportunities properly belonging to the nation's human citizens and effectively obsoleting their services to enable the rich owners of the major corporations to steal the birthright of the nation's human citizens;
    19. The government's creation of an antitrust standard (lowest price, regardless of the consequences) that enables the major corporations to put their smaller competitors (providing the same product with desired services but at a higher price) out of business;
    20. The government's failure to require the major corporations to disclose their reliance upon illegal income to provide net earnings needed to stay in business, and instead to willfully look the other way and permit the major corporations to violate the nation's antitrust laws, thereby enabling the growth of major retailers, and the consequent transfer of American jobs to lower-paying foreign countries to fill the thousands of new retail stores with cheap foreign imported goods, for the huge profit of the major retailers, but the obvious destruction of the American way of life for American human citizens and residents;
    21. Deliberate underfinancing of the court system to prevent the courts from effective enforcement of laws regulating the largest corporations, resulting in a system requiring (i) criminal defendants to plead guilty even though most of them are either not guilty in fact or would have been found not guilty at trial, and (ii) civil plaintiffs to settle their meritorious cases for far less than the damage caused by the defendant because of the civil litigation process which a defendant can employ to require a plaintiff to spend a million dollars or more in an effort to collect $50,000, for example; it should be noted that these same procedural protections in civil litigation are not made available for a criminal defendant to defend himself in a criminal case against him/her (e.g., the criminal defendant has no right to take the deposition of an expert witness prior to the criminal trial or to obtain full disclosure as to other testimony that the expert gave in other criminal cases);
    22. Government effort to narrow or eliminate the civil rights of its citizens (including the rights to environmentally sound earth on which to live) to make it more difficult for anyone to interfere with or even speak out against the government's program of giving away the wealth of the country and its citizens to the persons who control the government and their friends and associates.
    23. Getting voters to elect the Presidential candidate based on interests unrelated to the real objectives of the Candidate and the Candidate's backers (i.e. putting together a coalition of persons seeking establishment of their conservative religious beliefs and restrictions, to obtain the Presidency for the real purpose of putting the nation on a war economy, imposing some degree of martial law, and silencing the public while the controlling persons obtain billions or trillions of dollars in arms, munitions, oil-plundering, and increased oil price profits, and destruction of the earth on which we live.

    The Effect of the Government's Policy Since the Nixon Administration - Starting in 1969

    Ever since the start of the Administration of President Richard M. Nixon, in 1969, the U.S. Government has been doing the things described above, which enabled the major corporations to grow at the expense of smaller competitors and the public.

    The success of Wal-Mart during this growth period spawned various corporations to do the same thing but in specialized areas, such as appliances, books, records, auto parts, hardware, office supplies, and ethical drugs, thereby putting additional illegal competitive pressure on independent, law-abiding wholesalers, jobbers and retailers, who paid more for their goods than the major retailers who brought pressure on manufacturers to sell their products to the major retailers at lower per-unit prices than were being paid by the manufacturers' other customers.

    The prices being paid by the independent wholesalers for their product went higher and higher in relation to the price per unit paid by Wal-mart and the major specialized retailers, and as a predictable result, the major retailers got more and more customers away from the independents, and the independent started going out of business. Some of them did what was necessary to hang in and hope that whatever was happening would stop - that someone in government would see what what happening and put a stop to it.

    But this never happened. The Government instead, and with a vengeance, went with the major retailers as part of the Government's support of major corporations, and the hopes of the independent competitors went down the tubes as a result. More and more independent went out of business or sold their businesses at a substantial lost (for about 10% to 25% of the value of the inventory). At the same time, the regional manufacturers were unable to compete, because they couldn't afford to pay the fees demanded by retailers to give them shelf space, and the regional manufacturers either folded or sold out to larger manufacturers, who hoped that by becoming even larger (through acquiring failing regional manufacturers) they would be able to stand up to the demands of the major retailers, but this did not work out. The manufacturers are unable to find anyone else able to use their product. They put most of the independents out of business, and now the manufacturers are stuck competing for the unprofitable business of the major retail chains, who demand that the manufacturers do their manufacturing in low-cost foreign countries, which the manufacturers are doing in an attempt to slow down the destruction of their businesses. They are playing a game of musical chairs with the major retailers, with another chair being taken away from time to time and one more manufacturer going out of business as a result.

    It is interesting to note that in the auto parts industry during 2003, only one auto-parts manufacturer went out of business. Starting on January 1, 2004 up to the present (11/19/05), at least 35 auto-parts manufacturers have gone out of business (and into bankruptcy), with one of them, Delphi, being the largest bankruptcy of record.

    Of course, the government does nothing about this because bankrupt companies don't have clout, not having any money to make substantial campaign contributions. The persons benefiting from these bankruptcies are the major retailers, who are in the business of moving U.S. jobs to foreign countries, and causing parts companies to go into bankruptcy unless they quickly move their operations to other countries to make their parts more competitive with the manufacturers already making their goods in foreign countries.

    Of course, any one country (Mexico, for example) can't count on keeping the jobs for a long period of time. The corporations that moved jobs to Mexico to reduce their labor costs will move gthe same jobs to other countries with even lower labor rates, in what is a race to the bottom (to get the lowest labor rate in the world), and eliminating U.S. (and now Mexican) jobs in the process.

    The major corporations and their shareholders make a killing and probably hold job-loss parties to celebrate each time a U.S. factory closes and transfers its 10,000 jobs to China or other low-cost country.

    Government could stop this, and should, by imposing tariffs or penalties on the importation of goods, and by requiring companies that sell goods in the United States to pay their fair share of taxes on their use of the United States markets.

    There Is a Cure for These Problems

    Note added 5/8/07: As part of the cure, I have been seeking the appointment of an official I have named the "Town Attorney General". Now, in New York City, we are trying to obtain an amendment to the New York City Charter which would appoint an independent commission to investigate 9/11 and to appoint me as its counsel, with the title of New York City Attorney General, to enforce the rights of individuals, citizens, residents, homeowners, workers and small businesses at public expense. If you are interested in looking at a copy of a draft of the petition to have NYC voters create the independent commission, please let me know by email, and I'll send it to you. As I have been telling you, there must be a way of curing the problem before the problem turns the U.S. into a third-world country. End of Note

    The problem, as I see it, is that there is too much centralized power. When the President is elected, he/she appoints several people to key positions (including the Secretary of Defense, the Attorney General, the Director of Homeland Security, and several other key positions) and most of the power of the government is then exercised through these key people, who do what is wanted by the persons who really control the government (who may or may not include any or most of the group consisting of the President and his/her appointees). In recent years, the persons with money who ordinarily provided the funds for politicians to run for the Presidency have stepped up to the plate themselves, without embarrassment, to ask the voters to vote for them directly, starting with H. Ross Perot, followed by other wealthy politicians such as Mayor Bloomberg, Governor Corzine and Senator Warner, and of course the Kennedy clan.

    If the levers of government could operate at the lowest level of government, which is easier for the public to control, you could offset to a considerable extent the evils of concentration of the economy and political control.

    The control of the largest corporations can be achieved at the lowest level of government. In order to replace the withdrawn enforcement activities of the U.S. Justice Department (to stop illegal mergers and acquisitions, and other anticompetitive activities), the Federal Trade Commission (to stop illegal price discrimination and other anticompetitive trade activities), the Securities and Exchange Commission (to require full disclosure by the nation's largest corporations and competition for capital), a fluid or changing group of Town Attorney Generals could bring lawsuits for their respective towns and villages and have the combined effect that a single suit by the Federal Trade Commission would and did have in the past. For example, if the cost of defending a meritorious antitrust against a corporate defendant could amount to $5,000,000 over a 3-5 year period, the corporation could probably afford such suit and would have no pressure to change their trade practices to end the litigation. However, if 50 towns and villages out of the nation's 18,000 towns and villages were to bring suit (as 50 separate lawsuits), the errant corporation would be facing perhaps $250,000,000 in litigation expenses, and perhaps 1 to 5 times that amount in liability. Many corporations could not afford that kind of charge to their yearly earnings, and would be required to stop their illegal practice because the cost of continuing with the practice would exceed the value of engaging in the illegal practice. If this is not the case, it could take perhpas 200 lawsuits to stop the practice, but there is a number of town lawsuits that could stop almost any illegal practice by a corporation, even as large as Wal-Mart, I might add.

    The incentive for any one town to do what I suggest (i.e., appoint a Town Attorney General) is inherent in the appointment. A skilled Town Attorney General (hopefully no less skilled than the lawyers representing the corporation whose conduct needs correction) can expect to obtain settlements of this type of lawsuit (or be required to go the whole distance, in which the town might wind up with nothing, or wind up winning quite a few million dollars plus reimbursement of the town's legal expenses). Two towns could expect no more than the same result - to make money on the litigation. If other towns see that the towns with a Town Attorney General are making money for their residents, other towns will also appoint a Town Attorney General, and instead of two lawsuits against an errant corporation the corporation might find 10 or 30 or 300 lawsuits against it, and will be forced into changing its practices at some point along the way. If not, the corporation will find that the lawsuits will drive it out of business or into bankruptcy, at which point the illegal activity might be dealt with and ended.

    As I see it, a law-enforcement official at the lowest level of government (i.e., the town or village) is the way to go, through appointment of a "Town Attorney General", to function for the town or village similar to the way the Attorney General functions for the United States or each of the 50 States.

    The Town Attorney General would bring suit to enforce the law against such persons that the federal or state governments had immunized from regulation or oversight. Thus, if Wal-Mart cannot be stopped at the federal level, there is no reason why some of the nation's 18,000 towns and villages can't go into court and enforce various laws against Wal-Mart or any other major corporation. The mere fact that they seem to have protection from the federal government from any enforcement activities doesn't mean that a local government can't attempt to enforce the law. Attorney General Spitzer in New York did some of this during the past few years in New York, and during 2003 was able to obtain settlements amounting to $2.3 billion for New York State.

    If a town or village did this type of law enforcement to protect the businesses and residents of the town or village, it could expect to obtain settlements of perhaps $5,000 to $10,000 per year per family, with the money available for distribution to the residents periodically (such as at the end of year year).

    See my website My Town Attorney General Website for a further explanation. The website more fully develops what I explained in my book SAVING MAIN STREET AND ITS RETAILERS, which I self-published during September, 2004. My website for this book and two others I wrote during the summer of 2004 is located at Website for My Book SAVING MAIN STREET AND ITS RETAILERS. The other two books are A LAW CAREER IS THE SMART WAY - TO AVOID THE EVIL ECONOMIC TRIO OF OUTSOURCING, GLOBALIZATION AND DECLINING STANDARD OF LIVING, and SELF EMPLOYMENT - TO AVOID THE EVIL ECONOMIC TRIO OF OUTSOURCING, GLOBALIZATION AND DECLINING STANDARD OF LIVING. The website for these two other books is at Website for My Book SAVING MAIN STREET AND ITS RETAILERS. Last but not least, see these two campaign websites: my campaign website and my related website to build list of Americans interested in keeping their jobs, earning more, obtaining a job or a better job, and stopping jobs from leaving the country.

    Excerpt from Saving Main Street and Its Retailers Concerning Cause and Cure of Globalization

    I am quoting from my book Saving Main Street and Its Retailers (pages 55-57) to explain my view on how globalization occurred and how it can be stopped, at least in part:

    Causes of Globalization

    Globalization seems to be the result of the disparity of government taxation and regulation of business and related costs, together with the standard of living of the persons living within a country and the increased ease with which business can be conducted across country lines without interference of, or even knowledge by, the host country.

    It seemed easy to outsource components of an American business to other countries, and the practice grew as companies learned how to expand their outsourcing, and companies new to outsourcing got in on the act.

    Part of the responsibility for this devastating evil of globalization has to be assigned to the unbelievable culpability of the United States government in creating and financing opportunities for American and foreign businesses to move jobs out of America (through NAFTA, GATT and CAFTA, the Central America Free Trade Agreement), but still be able to sell their products and services to Americans with no penalty for their hostile business practices.

    Globalization is a War on the U.S. Economy

    In effect, globalization is a war on the American economy, permitted by the multinational business interests, which control the United States government through continual campaign contributions.

    To some extent Americans through their tax dollars are providing the money for American and foreign businesses to pull American jobs out of the United States. The rationale by proponents of globalization in support of such evil practices is that this makes the corporation stronger and better able to compete in the world market.

    Globalizing American Corporations Should Have Their American Passport Taken Away

    Yet, this movement into the world market makes the corporations less American to such extent and less important for Americans that it be able to compete (and instead when losing its pro American character, the globalizing corporation should have its American passport taken away as a corporation which has given up its United States citizenship). American companies, with the support of American money, are becoming non-American and responsible to no government.

    There should be no right to move jobs to foreign countries and then sell the foreign output to Americans without payment of an appropriate penalty, for use in compensating the persons in America injured by such practices. The argument about making American corporations more competitive fails to recognize that such increased competitiveness only deprives Americans of more of their wealth, at least it seems to me.

    A Use Tax Should Be Implemented to Compensate the United States for Use of Foreign Labor in Products Sold to Americans

    Companies which make sales to the United States of foreign output should be required to pay what could be defined as a “use tax”, in an amount corresponding to the amount lost by the United States by reason of the foreign outsourcing, including income taxes and payroll taxes.

    The failure to do this is making our country head into financial decline, and a decline of the American standard of living. Globalization is a man-made disaster and can and should be stopped, especially with appropriate imposition of this use tax.

    Some Basic Facts for You to Understand

    The person controlling globalization want globalization and are encouraging and financing it, so don’t expect anything but be-grudging relief; expect denials that government can do anything to stop the forces of globalization. The elected politicians who could do something to offset globalization have been paid off with campaign contributions - to do nothing to interfere with the large business corporations except if there develops substantial public opinion demanding change, which is unlikely to occur because the same interests own the nation’s major media.

    As long as the public is unaware of what is happening there will be no significant public demand for change; and whatever demand there is will be based on misinformation and call for unwork-able solutions.

    [end of quote from Saving Main Street and Its Retailers, pp. 55-57]

    Prepared by attorney Carl E. Person. For his c.v. or resume, click on Carl E. Person C.V.

    If you have any questions, please call Carl Person at 212-307-4444, fax him at 212-307-0247, or email him at carlpers@ix.netcom.com

    Copyright © 2001, 2005-2007 by Carl E. Person





    05/03/06 14:15