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If you want to understand the source of the world's problems, follow the Davos coverage by CNN and Bloomberg News for a few days. Not only will they tell you what the source is, they'll prove that your instincts are right about billionaires and those who present them as the arbiters of all things fair and right.

Davos is the annual billionaires' conclave where they network, get their message straight, gladhand hungry politicians, and try to determine our fate. Ladies and gentlemen, our problem isn't what the billionaires think it is. Our problem is the billionaires.

Last year, the billionaires were obsessing on income inequality. Following the Occupy protests, they saw it as a source of instability and actually, for a short moment, thought it might be something they should try to solve. At least, that's how our corporate media spun it for us. This year, nary a peep out of them about income inequality. No, this year was all fearmongering over the US budget deficit and the European debt crisis.

Donohue on deficits and cuts

Ali Velshi spoke to US Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue on Friday about his solutions to the deficit problem. After the requisite hand-wringing about unemployment rates in Europe which have come about largely because the billionaires forced austerity on Greece, Spain and Italy, Donohue turned to the United States budget deficit, where he drew a distinction between European austerity and American austerity measures.

Donohue explained that American austerity measures involve "the spending that is automatic and that is entitlements -- Social Security a little bit, but primarily Medicare -- and it goes up, up, up."

Is Donohue suggesting that on that basis, it's not really austerity because it's cuts to necessities, so people will pay with or without the social safety net. Really?

We all know better, and we also know that health care spending has decreased during this recession. Not because costs have decreased, but because people are foregoing health care in order to save money. So sure, billionaires, take aim at the two government programs reaching the most people and doing the most good. That makes a ton of sense, right?

Donohue insists that longer life expectancies require lawmakers to "turn the curve down." I will let you speculate on how cutting Medicare might affect life expectancies, and whether that's what Donohue means by turning the curve down.

Keep in mind, this comes from a guy who was paid nearly $5 million dollars in salary in 2010 from a trade organization that spends millions to elect wingnuts to Congress. What the heck does he know about what that "small" Social Security cut and larger Medicare cut would do to anyone?

Donohue: Fracking is our future

All is not lost, peasants. Tom Donohue has the answer to our economic woes. All we need to do, according to the God of Commerce, is open federal lands and frack the hell out of them. Really. Here is his claim, verbatim:

Fracking, for example, has created 1.75 million jobs in less than two years. There's billions and billions of dollars going to the states and the federal coffers. We have more energy than anybody in the world and, if we, in an environmentally friendly way, acquire it, go on the federal lands, do it in the right way, we'll get that extra piece of cash and bring manufacturing and jobs back to the United States or create them in the United States because of our energy.

In laymen's English, Donohue's constituents -- the Kochs, the Hunts, and other Texas oil barons -- see the answer to our economic woes as being pretty simple. Sell federal lands to them, let them frack the heck out of it (in an environmentally friendly way, of course -- cough), and there will be more jobs than the eye can see!

Speaking strictly for me, I'd prefer to leave my children and grandchildren with pristine, unpolluted, unmarred federal lands and find a different way to build the economy, but Donohue does reveal the center of the conflict between the Obama administration and the robber oil barons of the 21st century. Earlier in the interview, Donohue whined that the president was going to tackle climate change using his regulatory authority specifically with regard to the EPA and said the US Chamber was going to have to "work on that."

Oil oligarchs are struggling to remain relevant even as the rest of the world realizes oil dependency is a national security and economic danger we must mitigate, not celebrate. Donohue is simply the oligarchs' public relations mouthpiece.

Perhaps the Chamber minions in the House could pass a few more bills abolishing the EPA? That might work. Or not.

I trust that this year's billionaire boys' concerns will not be overlooked like last year's were. After all, income inequality is only a problem for as long as the minions cry out about it. Deficits and debt, on the other hand, are a real opportunity for wealth building at the expense of the peasants who were in the streets not that long before.

This is why I loathe Davos and all of the breathless celebrity reporting around it. The financial reporters practically scream like teenagers whenever a billionaire breathes, much less says anything substantive. Davos and the coverage surrounding it are meant to remind everyone that we serve at the pleasure of the oligarchs.

Transcript follows below the fold, courtesy of CNN:

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From Fox's Your World With Neil Cavuto, host Cavuto and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Tom Donohue decided to have themselves a pity party about Donohue not being invited to a meeting at the White House this Tuesday. Never mind the fact that Donohue and his organization spent boatloads of money trying to make sure President Obama was not reelected. Donahue is located just across the street! How dare the administration snub him when he had such a short walk to get there, if he were invited to attend!

Does anyone think that any host on Fox would be asking MoveOn, or Planned Parenthood, or the heads of any unions in the United States why a president Mitt Romney, if we were unfortunate enough to have him elected, wasn't willing to meet with them immediately after the election and answer to them what he's going to do about their demands?

I'm not in the mood to try to transcribe this nonsense, but their interview can be summed up with a few points. One, Tom Donohue and his organization do not represent small businesses or even just businesses in the United States and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce should not be confused with actual Chamber of Commerce groups at a local level, which do actually represent local interests and many small businesses. If anyone wasn't already sure of that, all you have to do is listen to the pitch Donohue was making here for big oil and the natural gas industry as the solution to our employment problems.

And when asked if raising taxes on the wealthy will be damaging to our economy, Donahue naturally agrees and calls it a “big mistake” to let the Bush era tax cuts which were already extended expire. And of course he wants to see our social safety nets cut and the corporate tax rates lowered. Because heaven forbid we haven't had quite enough income disparity in the United States and need just a little more money moved from the pockets of the 99 percent to the 1 percent.

And last but not least, Donahue does what we see most Republicans doing these days, which is conflating “small businesses” who don't have a lot of employees, like hedge funds, with the average real small business out there that won't see much change, if any, if the tax cuts for those making over $250,000 in taxable income a year are allowed to expire.

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The AFL-CIO and the US Chamber of Commerce have issued a joint statement praising President Obama for his call to invest in infrastructure during his State of the Union address. Richard Trumka explained the decision during this interview with CNN's John King and stressed the importance of getting Americans back to work and what it means for our economy.

I was especially glad to hear him say this and beat back the beltway Villager common wisdom on the need for austerity measures.

KING: You're in Davos and there was a report issued here in the United States today. I don't want to dive into the weeds of it about what happened, what caused the financial collapse back in 2008. What is the global sense there? Is there optimism? Is there still unease? Is it still sort of a, we're not sure what's around the corner?

TRUMKA: I think it's a little bit of both, John. There is a little bit of optimism, but I think there's still a lot of concern. We had a panel that I was on, and we had people from every different sector that was on the panel. They're concerned about this big kick towards austerity. They think that it can kick us back into recession. They're afraid that in our government, for instance, that the Republicans won't look at things realistically, they'll never raise revenue. So we won't be able to fix the deficit problem that we have in the midterm and long term.

I would say it's mixed. I would say there's skepticism. There's some optimism as well. There's some good signs out there. So we work together and if we can get this infrastructure program going in the United States, creates some other momentum, we can get jobs growing, and then we'll have a real recovery. Right now, Wall Street is seeing a little bit of a recovery, but Main Street has not seen a recovery, because we haven't seen any jobs created or enough to fill the hole that was created by the recession. And I think that's pretty much true around the globe. Everybody is saying a recovery happens when we have people back to work.

Amen brother. Here's more from the AFL-CIO on the joint statement -- AFL-CIO and Chamber Agree on Obama’s Call for Infrastructure Rebuild.

I don't have a lot of love lost for the Chamber's Tom Donahue, but how pitiful is it when even he is looking way more rational than the House Republicans when it comes to spending measures? Now the question is, will they listen to him?

I'm so glad to see CNN and CBS decided this wasn't newsworthy:

Election Attorneys File Racketeering Complaint Against Karl Rove and Tom Donohue's Elections Operations:

Complaint Charges Fraud, False Statement And Illegal Coordination

WASHINGTON, Oct. 29 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The following is being issued by ProtectOurElections.org:

Yesterday, Ohio election attorney Cliff Arnebeck filed a two-count complaint with the Ohio Election Commission against The Partnership for Ohio's Future, an affiliate of the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, alleging two overarching charges under state racketeering laws. First, that the Partnership is "...not truly independent, but rather has been coordinated with the Republican candidates, their agents, committees, parties and their de facto coordinated national campaign being directed by Karl Rove." Second, that the Partnership is making false statements by saying that its ads are "not authorized by a candidate or a candidate's committee," when in fact they are. http://freepress.org/images/departments/complaint/Affidavit_of_Complaint.pdf

On Sunday, October 24, Mr. Arnebeck served Mr. Rove with a subpoena agreed to by Ohio's Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner, in conjunction with illegal election activities.

h/t Laffy

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What a guy... John Boehner, man of the little people. I guess Republicans only like bailouts when they're for multi-billion dollar foreign oil companies. After realizing he stepped in it, it John Boehner is now walking back his comment that the taxpayers should help bailout BP.

Boehner: Government--i.e. Taxpayers--Should Help Pay For Oil Spill:

Congressional Democrats and the White House are toying with different ways to force BP to cover the costs of damages from the Gulf oil spill. But they face stiff opposition from industry...and it seems leading Republicans. In response to a question from TPMDC, House Minority Leader John Boehner said he believes taxpayers should help pick up the tab for the clean up.

"I think the people responsible in the oil spill--BP and the federal government--should take full responsibility for what's happening there," Boehner said at his weekly press conference this morning.

Boehner's statement followed comments last Friday by US Chamber of Commerce CEO Tom Donohue who said he opposes efforts to stick BP, a member of the Chamber, with the bill. "It is generally not the practice of this country to change the laws after the game," he said. "Everybody is going to contribute to this clean up. We are all going to have to do it. We are going to have to get the money from the government and from the companies and we will figure out a way to do that."

And then the backtrack. Boehner spox: No taxpayer money on Gulf spill cleanup or damages:

House GOP leader John Boehner does not believe any taxpayer money should be spent on the cleanup of the Gulf spill or on any damages caused by it, his spokesman confirms to me.

"No taxpayer money for cleanup or damages -- period. BP pays," Boehner spokesman Michael Steel emails.

...Boehner's office subsequently clarified, saying he'd misheard the question. His aides pointed to this previous Boehner quote: "Not a dime of taxpayer money should be used to clean up their mess." And Boehner has also said we must "hold BP accountable for the clean up costs."

Those quotes are pretty clear. But the problem is that the Chamber's position is that while BP is on the hook for the cleanup, its liability for damages should be limited, meaning inevitably that taxpayers should bear some of that liability.

...Perhaps, but the distinction between cleanup and damages is clearly important to the Chamber and to BP. Boehner's office, however, insists that his position on this has been clear throughout.

Either way, asked for more clarification, Boehner spokesman Steel says that when Boehner said no taxpayer money should be spent on the cleanup, that does also include damages.

"No taxpayer money for cleanup or damages -- period," Steel emailed. "BP pays. If the current law doesn't guarantee that, we are happy to work in a bipartisan way on reasonable new legislation."

Who wants to take a bet Boehner and the Republicans still won't vote for lifting the cap on damages? Olbermann reports BP is also desperate to protect their stock prices. As he noted it's too bad they're not attacking stopping the oil destroying the Gulf with the same amount of concern.

BP offers dividend olive branch to U.S.:

BP is seeking a deal with the White House under which it would sacrifice its dividend in return for a calming of the political hysteria over the Gulf of Mexico disaster.

Chief executive Tony Hayward will proffer the olive branch in meetings over the coming days in the hope of quelling the increasingly vicious invective in Washington.

Options include scrapping the payout for one quarter or until the Macondo well is capped; putting the payment in 'escrow' - i.e. deferring it - until BP's liabilities are clearer; or paying it in shares rather than cash. Read on...