Latest example is healthcare reform. In the second quarter of 2009, the health industry spent $133 million on lobbyists, reckons the Center for Responsive Politics.

That doesn’t count lobbying by associations. The US Chamber of Commerce alone spent $26 million on lobbying in the first half of this year, “a good chunk” on the health issue, says Dave Levinthal, spokesman for the center.

Polls show the public wants healthcare reform and a public-insurance option. So the health-insurance industry is pretending to be in favor of reform while trying to kill it through campaign contributions, ads, and lobbying, says Wendell Potter, who until recently led corporate communications at CIGNA, a major health-insurance company.

Moreover trade unions provide some balance of power to the might of business and wealth. In Sweden, 85 percent of the labor force is organized; in other major nations 35-40 percent. Compare with 7.4 percent of workers in the private sector in the US.

This is true. Money talks.

Polls show the public wants healthcare reform and a public-insurance option.

William H. Vanderbilt, president of the New York Central Railroad, is a metaphor for the attitude of today's Corporate Elite toward the people.

In 1882, when Vanderbilt was told that the public had a right to know the facts, Vanderbilt's reply was "The public be damned."