There are two examples today that make it crystal clear how our society is damaged by corporate power. The first comes in the increasingly depressing arena of health care reform:

Behind the scenes, however, Mr. Obama and his advisers have been quite active, sometimes negotiating deals with a degree of cold-eyed political realism potentially at odds with the president’s rhetoric.

Last month, for example, hospital officials were poised to appear at the White House to announce a deal limiting their industry’s share of the costs of the overhaul proposal when a wave of jitters swept through the group. Senator Max Baucus, the Finance Committee chairman and a party to the deal, had abruptly pulled out of the event. Was he backing away from his end of the deal?

Not to worry, Jim Messina, deputy White House chief of staff, told the lobbyists, according to White House officials and lobbyists briefed on the call. The White House was standing behind the deal, Mr. Messina said, capping the industry’s costs at a maximum of $155 billion over 10 years in trade for its political support.

   This is what happens when you make a decision to negotiate with people who do not care about the American people. They care only about profits. The above scenario was almost a guarantee once our leadership decided not to be clear that the end was coming for the insurance industry and the corporate interests who made money off the health and welfare of people.

   And, number two, the $100 million man is getting a helping hand from his employer who is looking for a loophole:

Citigroup is planning to claim that an energy trader who is due to receive compensation of $100 million this year should be exempt from review by a federal authority given responsibility for setting pay packages at financial companies that received taxpayer bailouts, executives at the bank said Wednesday…

….

Citigroup executives say the trader’s compensation is exempt because it is part of a contract signed before the law establishing the review system was passed.

The trader, Andrew J. Hall, the head of Citigroup’s highly profitable Phibro commodity trading unit, was paid $100 million last year and under a contract signed in October is on track to receive a similar amount this year, executives with knowledge of the contract said Wednesday.

   You can always look for loopholes when the topic of the discussion is not the immorality of the contract.