Question: How to answer the Corporation vs. Individual (regulation protections) question?

[orenbus]

Recently a friend of mine asked me the following question:

Ron Paul doesn't run as an independent because he is realistic in that we as a country do badly in practicing democracy. That unless you have millions of dollars like Ross Perot you have little to no chance of being elected. With that understanding why does he not understand the idea behind regulating big business? For example without millions of dollars to spend on lawyers how can an individual go up against a large corporation if without regulation or government protections to doing damage to individuals your only recourse is to bring a large corporation to court? As in the case of running for president in this day and age the only chance of winning is either running as a Republican or Democrat or being independently wealthy, and the only way of beating a large corporation in court is either through a class action suit (which is difficult to manage and still requires lots of money) or to be independently wealthy.

He forwarded me the following video as an example of what he's talking about.



Any help in answering this would be appreciated.

[hvac ak47]

Government protects the corporations. Their money is spent buying off politicians.

Why does Obamas donations come mostly from the corporations and Rons from the people?

[bamafanmco]

Government promotes and supports Democrats and Republicans and works together to exclude third parties. In the same way government works with and supports corporations. Removing that support would lead to sufficient free-market regulation.
In fact I don't believe corporations as an entity should exist in a free society. By that I mean a corporation is a legal entity with its own rights and limited liability as defined by law. I don't believe there should be any limit to liablilty. The way it is setup its easier and safer for average joe to invest in GE and Coke, that the local super market. The limited liability and other advantages enjoyed by corps distorts investment. Remove those advantages and no further regulation will be needed.

[FreeMind&Market]

Lots of negative comments over there, to be expected. He is defending the need for regulations and the pointing out the cost of going to court.

The key response, here? Regulatory Capture. Most corporations hide behind the regulations for their own benefit. The reason it is so expensive to take a corporation to court is that they use a myriad of regulations and loopholes created by them to drag-out the process (and require expensive, specialty lawyers to navigate through them). The Free Market, if allowed to work, is the only regulator I know of that can't be "captured."

Power companies are a first-hand example. They are regulated by the Fed. Energy Reg. Comm (FERC). The FERC is an independent agency of the government and are completely funded by the power companies they purport to regulate. If you want to take the power company to court involving a federal issue, you'll first have through an administrative hearing process at the FERC and then eventually you'll end-up fighting the FERC in federal court which will use our tax dollars and their endless lawyers.

Here is an article of the FDA regulating Social Media. All this is is that the big pharma is afraid they will get sued, so they want the government to create regulations that protect them.

[FreeMind&Market]

I don't believe there should be any limit to liablilty.

At risk of hijacking this thread, I'll adamantly disagree with you here. If an executive or other decision maker within the company were grossly or willfully negligent then they should bare their share of the responsibility for being negligent. However, a shareholder is not going to know everything the executives are up to even with reasonable due diligence. This applies to small companies as well as large companies.

[bamafanmco]

At risk of hijacking this thread, I'll adamantly disagree with you here. If an executive or other decision maker within the company were grossly or willfully negligent then they should bare their share of the responsibility for being negligent. However, a shareholder is not going to know everything the executives are up to even with reasonable due diligence. This applies to small companies as well as large companies.

And that is the point, shareholders should be intimately aware of what they are investing in. Just like savers should research their banks in a free market. Investers should research heavily before putting money into a company. And everything executive do should be available to shareholders otherwise they risk guilt of fraud. Limited liability, is a limit on someone elses' property rights. Maybe we would have less shareholders, less investment more saving. Maybe it would be a better investment for the shareholder to start his own local business, instead of investing in a large multinational corporation that he doesn't know enough about.

[FreeMind&Market]

@bamafanmco - I don't want to hijack this thread, so I'll just restate "a shareholder is not going to know everything the executives are up to even with reasonable due diligence". You may not agree with my quoted statement, but lets just agree to disagree so this tread doesn't go off track.

[dusman]

Well, on the surface the argument presented by the gentlemen in the video is fairly well founded. However, it assumes there is no other recourse, where their actually are a few.

I recommend you guys look into a few different topics, that I have taken a deep interest in over the past few years.

1) Commercial Liens
2) Notarial Protest and Method of Default

Commercial Liens are essentially a claim against either Government or Corporations for violating your rights or your contracts. You can make a claim against a person within a corporation whom has been fraudulent and serve them with a Commercial Lien. What this does is get the IRS involved and if founded in fact, they will put a lien on said person's assets. This get's past the corporate veil that protects persons under a Corporate structure. It's actually the very same process used by the IRS to collect back-taxes and is the most powerful lien available. Not many realize they can use this personally. Although, I prefer to not give IRS any purpose.. it does seem to be pretty effective. There are some amusing stories of these really causing issues for public officials whom violate your rights, by attaching a monetary penalty to their actions. What's intriguing about this method is that it cannot be lifted by anyone but the issuer and is maintained until conditions of the lien are met.

Notarial Protest/Notice of Default Method is a little known process you can use through the Notary Publics and my preferred alternative in a Libertarian society. Not many people realize that a Notary is basically as powerful as a state's Supreme Court Justice, since they can establish and verify truth and facts that are admissible in court. All members of the public can become notaries. In fact, a Notarial Protest starts an administrative procedure within the court that no Judge can make an opinion on. They are required by law to proceed through such process.

For example, notices from a bank or a credit card agency, requesting payment for overdue payments, overdrafts, etc. are notarial protests/notices of default method. You have 30 days to respond and if you don't, it puts you in default to the claim. You can respond to all notices in 4 ways.. 2 keep you in honor in the court and 2 cause you to be dishonorable in court:

1) Agreement by Notice: Honorable
2) Conditional Agreement by Notice: Honorable
3) Disagreement by Notice: Dishonorable
4) No Response: Dishonorable

All court cases operate on the assumption that there is a dispute in law. If you are going to court, it's because you have either established that you are disputing someone's claim or have not responded to a claim. You can not be brought into court if there is no dispute established. A notice by banks/credit card agencies is a little trick they use to create a dispute and put you in dishonor in court. The primary thing to remember is that courts follow a maxim of law that "He who leaves the battlefield first, is the loser." When a notice is served on you, a battle has begun. In most cases, people ignore these notices and the courts immediately recognize this as "Silence equals agreement." Therefore, when you get a notice ALWAYS respond. If the other party does not respond to your reply notice within 30 days, they have left the battlefield. This works both ways. If they don't respond, you can serve them with a Method of Default notice.

Sometimes, if I know the notice is a valid claim, I like to mess with them. I send a notarized response back that simply says "Thank You for sending me a notice." Oddly, you'll get another notice back saying something along the lines, "We received your notice." I'll respond again with a "thank you" and they will usually always respond back with another notice. This is because you are playing a game of who will leave the battlefield first.

Now, let me go into more specific ways to respond to notices:

1) Agreement by Notice: This is where you respond to a notice with an agreement to meet the terms of the notice. The party giving notice cannot take you to court over the matter, unless you violate your agreement to pay, establishing a dispute that can be brought before a court.

2) Conditional Agreement by Notice: This is really the best way to respond to any notice. For example: Let's say some credit card agency erroneously sends you a notice that you owe them money when you don't. DO NOT dispute this claim. That would allow them to take you to court and then you are at the whim of the Judge's opinion on the matter. Instead respond with a conditional agreement. Something like "I agree to pay this amount you claim I owe, when you can provide me a contract with my signature and the 2nd party's signature; a requirement to establish a valid contract." This puts the other party in a pickle. If they have no contract, you will always win this battle. Also, since no corporation can sign a contract, you will always win this battle. Contracts can only be made between two living human beings, not artificial persons (Corporations = Artificial Persons in law). What a conditional agreement does is say "I agree to your terms if you agree to mine." If they do not meet your terms, then they have defaulted on the agreement. You can then serve them with a Notice of Default and file it with the court. A judge cannot place his opinion on the matter, because in law the other party has admitted to default. The judge will be forced by law to rule in your favor, every single time.

3) Disagreement by Notice: This is just a dumb way to proceed with any notice and should ALWAYS be avoided. This will immediately bring the court's opinion into play in the matter. All Corporate notices aim to get you to either respond in dispute or not respond at all. Never do this or you will likely be taken to court.

4) No Response: This is the worst thing you can do. It is exactly the same as sending a notice that you agree to their claim. A judge will be forced to rule in favor of the other party 100% of the time.

I have used this effectively to get pretty much any Corporation off my back. I've gotten out of cell phone contracts, credit card debt, etc. by using conditional agreements. Always remember that any contract you sign with a Corporation is, in law, not a faithful, LAWFUL (as opposed to legal) contract. It can only be enforced by your ignorance to how contracts function. They know this and is why corruption with Corporations is so prevalent.

Here is an example of a conditional agreement I delivered to a credit card agency, which stopped the agency dead in their tracks and wiped out my debt with them:

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Your SUMMONS of 04/05/2011 was received by me on approximately April 5^th, 2011. It is not now, nor has it ever been my intention to avoid paying any obligation that I may lawfully owe. Therefore, I am conditionally accepting to pay the balance disclosed in your notice in the amount of $1436.35 on condition and upon proof of claim that:

1. You will please furnish a copy of the original contract redacting my social security number to
   prevent identify theft and state under penalty of perjury that your client is the bona fide party
   in interest of the contract and will produce the original with BOTH parties signatures for my own and a judge’s inspection should there be a trial to contest these matters.
2. You will please produce the account and general ledger statement showing the full accounting of the alleged obligation that you are now attempting to collect.
3. You will please identify by name and address all persons, corporations, associations, or any other parties having an interest in legal proceedings regarding the alleged debt.
4. You will please verify under penalty of perjury, that as a debt collector, you have not purchased evidence of debt and are proceeding with collection activity in the name of the original contracting party.
5. You will please verify under penalty of perjury, that you know and understand that certain clauses in a contract of adhesion, such as a so-called forum selection cause, are unenforceable unless the party to whom the contract is extended could have rejected the clause without impunity.
6. You will please provide verification from the stated creditor that you are authorized to act for them.
7. You will please verify that you know and understand that contacting me again after receipt of this notice, answer, and response without providing procedurally proper validation of the debt constitutes the use of interstate communications in a scheme of fraud by advancing a writing that you know is false with the intention that others on the written communication to the detriment of (Name redacted. Your name in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS, to signify the artificial person not the human being).
8. You will please provide copies of each monthly statement from the date that the account was opened.
9. You will please provide copies of any and all documents which show that the plaintiff is the owner of the specific obligation or claim upon which it sues.
10. You will please provide copies of all contracts, agreements or other documents between the plaintiff and any of its predecessors in interest relating to the purchase of debts, the collection of debts, or transfers of funds between such parties.
11. You will please provide copies of any and all documents that in any way relate to or involve this debt.
12. You will please provide copies of the terms and condition with respect to this debt at all times said account was open and active.
13. You will please provide copies of any and all documents that relate to the CHASE BANK Credit Protection Plan.
14. You will please provide copies of any and all marketing materials with respect to CHASE BANK credit cards or accounts in question.
15. You will please provide copies of any and all documents that the plaintiff intends to introduce as evidence at the trial of this action.
16. You please provide copies of any and all documents that the plaintiff intends to use in any way at the trial of this matter.
17. You can demonstrate that CHASE BANK was put at risk by extending the above-referenced credit and/or debt to me.
18. You can demonstrate that CHASE BANK was/is or will be damaged if the above-referenced credit and/or debt in not repaid.
19. You can demonstrate that CHASE BANK gave FULL DISCLOSURE to all matters dealing with the alleged credit and/or debt and said contract.
20. You can demonstrate that CHASE BANK as an ‘artificial entity/creature,’ created under the laws of the State in which it was established and doing business in the State of Indiana, by and through its Officers, Board of Directors and employees, are not bound to support Article I §X of the U.S. Constitution, as a ‘State created entity,’ in that “No State shall…make any Thing but gold and silver coin a Legal Tender in payment of Debts.”
21. You can demonstrate that CHASE BANK brought forward and loaned its own credit within the transaction/contract.
22. You can demonstrate that the undersigned’s signature on the original ‘contract’ did not create the value for the alleged credit.

AMERICAN ACCEPTANCE CO LLC AS ASSIGNEE OF CHASE BANK USA NA, you have twenty (20) days from receipt of this Conditional Acceptance to respond on a point-by-point basis, via sworn affidavit, under your full commercial liability, signing under penalty of perjury that the facts contained therein are true, correct, complete and not misleading. Mere declarations are an insufficient response, as declarations permit lying by omission and hearsay, which no honorable draft may contain. If an extension of time is needed to properly answer, please request it in writing. Failure to respond will be deemed agreement with the facts presented in attached affidavit and that there is no ability to prove your claim, thereby indicating that no debt exists.

All rights reserved without prejudice, UCC 1-308

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Basically, I established enough conditions in my notice to make it a nightmare for them to litigate. In fact, I'm pretty certain it is impossible to meet these conditions, just on the legality of the contract. I never got a response back and served them with a notice of default, which I served into the public record with the court that the summons was with. Approximately 2 months later, it was removed from my credit report.

How awesome is that?