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margin requirements for borrowing money to buy futures in Chicago were much
less stringent than the requirements for margin-buying of stocks in New
York. Liquidity for this operation could be drawn from banks and other
institutions loyal to the Bush-Baker-Brady power cartel, with full backup
and assistance from the district banks of the Federal Reserve.
The Brady "drugged market" mechanisms, with the refinements they have
acquired since 1988, are a key factor behind the Dow Jones Industrial's
seeming defiance of the law of gravity in attaining a new all-time high,
well above the 3,000 mark during 1991.
In 1988, Bush boasted of his achievements in the field of deregulation. One
important case study of the impact of Bush's Task Force on Regulatory
Relief is the meatpacking industry. In February 1981, when Reagan gave Bush
"line" authority for deregulation, he promulgated Executive Order 12291,
which established the principle that federal regulations "be based upon
adequate evidence that their potential benefits to society are greater than
their potential costs to society." In practice, that meant that Bush threw
health and safety standards out the window in order to ingratiate himself
with gouging entrepreneurs. In March 1981, Bush wrote to businessmen and
invited them to enumerate the ten areas they wanted to see deregulated,
with specific recommendations on what they wanted done. By the end of the
year, Bush's office issued a self-congratulatory report boasting of a
"significant reduction in the cost of federal regulation."
In the meatpacking industry, this translated into production line speedup
as jobs were eliminated, with a cavalier attitude toward safety
precautions. At the same time, the Occupational Safety and Health
Administration sharply reduced inspections, often arriving only after
disabling or lethal accidents had already occurred. In 1980, there were 280
OSHA inspections in meatpacking plants, but in 1988 there were only 176.
This is in an industry in which the rate of personal injury is 173 persons
per working day, three times the average of all remaining U.S. industry. /
Note #8
Bush used his Task Force on Regulatory Relief as a way to curry favor with
various business groups whose support he wanted for his future plans to
assume the presidency in his own right. According to one study made midway
through the Reagan years, Bush converted his own office "into a convenient
back door for corporate lobbyists" and "a hidden court of last resort for
special interest groups that have lost their arguments in Congress, in the
federal courts, or in the regulatory process.... Case by case, the vice
president's office got involved in some mean and petty issues that directly
affect people's health and lives, from the dumping of toxic pollutants to
government warnings concerning potentially harmful drugs." / Note #9
There were also reports of serious abuses by Bush, especially in the area
of conflicts of interest. In one case, Bush intervened in March 1981 in
favor of Eli Lilly & Co., of which he had been a director in 1977-79. Bush
had owned $145,000 of stock in Eli Lilly until January 1981, after which it
was placed in a blind trust, meaning that Bush ostensibly had no way of
knowing whether his trust still owned shares in the firm or not. The
Treasury Department had wanted to make the terms of a tax break for U.S.
pharmaceutical firms operating in Puerto Rico more stringent, but Vice
President Bush had contacted the Treasury to urge that "technical" changes
be made in the planned restriction of the tax break. By April 14, Bush was
feeling some heat, and he wrote a second letter to Treasury Secretary Don
Regan asking that his first request be withdrawn, because Bush was now
"uncomfortable about the appearance of my active personal involvement in
the details of a tax matter directly affecting a company with which I once
had a close association." / Note #1 / Note #0
Bush's continuing interest in Eli Lilly is underlined by the fact that the
Pulliam family of Indiana, the family clan of Bush's 1988 running mate, Dan
Quayle, owned a large portion of the Eli Lilly shares. Bush's choice of
Quayle was but a reaffirmation of a pre-existing financial and political
alliance with the Pulliam interests, which also include a newspaper chain.
Ripping Up the Airline Industry
Bush's ideal of labor-management practices and corporate leadership in
general appears to have been embodied by Frank Lorenzo, the most celebrated
and hated "banquerotteur" of U.S. air transport. Before his downfall in
early 1990, Lorenzo combined Texas Air, Continental Airlines, New York Air,
People's Express and Eastern Airlines into one holding, and then presided
over its bankruptcy. Now Eastern has been liquidated, and the other
components are likely to follow suit. Along the way to this debacle,
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