MEXICANOCCUPATION.blogspot.com
*
Go to http://www.MEXICANOCCUPATION.blogspot.com and read articles and comments from other Americans on what they’ve witnessed in their communities around the country. While most of the population of California is now ILLEGAL, the problems, costs, assault to our culture by Mexico is EVERYWHERE. copy and pass it to your friends.
*
WHO SHOULD PAY FOR WALL STs RAPE & PILLAGE?
WHO SHOULD PAY FOR BEING MEXICO’S WELFARE, FREE BIRTHING CLINICS, JOBS AND JAILS LA RAZA DEMS’ PROGRAM IN OUR BORDERS?
OBAMA SAYS THE AMERICAN MIDDLE CLASS MUST, AND IS!
*
PRETTY MUCH THE WSWS RECOMMENDATIONS TO FIX THE STAGGERING COST FO WALL ST.s RAPE AND PILLAGE, IS AN INDICTMENT OF BARACK OBAMA’S TWO YEARS AS WALL ST.s REPRESENTATIVE.
NOTHING SUMS OF OBAMA’S WALL ST LEANING THAN THE FACT THAT HE BROUGHT ONE OF HIS BIGGEST DONORS, J.P. MORGAN TO OPERATE OUT OF THE WHITE HOUSE, AS DICK CHENEY OPERATED HALLIBURTON OUT OF HIS. THAT BEING J.P. MORGAN’S DALEY, WHO LIKE OBAMA, IS AN ADVOCATE FOR OPEN BORDERS TO KEEP WAGES DEPRESSED.
WHAT THE WSWS RECOMMENDATIONS DID NOT SUGGEST IS ENDING OUR BEING MEXICO’S WELFARE, ANCHOR BABY BIRTHING CENTERS, JOBS AND JAILS PROGRAM. CALIFORNIA ALONE PUTS OUT $20 BILLION A YEAR IN SOCIAL SERVICES TO ILLEGALS AND THERE IS NOT TALK OF ENDING THAT CORRUPTION. IN FACT, THERE IS NOT ONE LA RAZA DEM IN CA THAT IS NOT PUSHING FOR OBAMA’S OPEN BORDERS, AMNESTY OR AT LEAST CONTINUED NON-ENFORCEMENT OF LAWS PROHIBITING THE EMPLOYMENT OF ILLEGALS!
NO PRESIDENT IN HISTORY HAS WORKED TO BENEFIT A FOREIGN GOVERNMENT MORE THAN BARACK OBAMA HAS MEXICO! WHEN THE MEXICANS RANTS, OBAMA GOES LIMP. JUST AS HE DOES FOR HIS BANKSTERS!
THERE ARE NOW 38 MILLION MEX FLAG WAVER IN OUR BORDERS AND THE NUMBER OF SANCTUARY CITIES WHERE ILLEGALS ARE ABOVE THE LAW ARE GROWING RAPIDLY!
*
The US states’ budget crisis: Where should the money come from?
7 March 2011
Republican and Democratic governors in state after state claim they have no choice but to impose drastic cuts on the wages, health benefits and pensions of public employees, as well as slashing funding for education, health care and other vital social services. The states face intractable budget shortfalls, the argument goes. They have to cut because “there is no money.”
This is the main theme sounded by Governor Scott Walker in Wisconsin, who is snatching $300 million from state workers’ pockets and eliminating most of their collective bargaining rights as part of a $3.6 billion deficit reduction program. As he said in one television interview, “The bottom line is we are trying to balance our budget and there really is no room to negotiate on that because we’re broke.”
Democratic and Republican politicians in Washington, from House Speaker John Boehner to President Obama, agree with this diagnosis. “We’re broke,” Boehner declares on a regular basis to justify demands for more cuts. In his State of the Union speech, Obama said, “We have to confront the fact that our government spends more than it takes in. That is not sustainable.”
The corporate-controlled media parrots these claims, never questioning the unstated premise behind all these declarations of bankruptcy: the uncritical acceptance of the vast social polarization in America, with the piling up of untold riches by the financial elite and the accumulation, at the other pole of society, of unemployment, poverty and unmet social needs.
The media portrays opposition to budget cutting as irrational and unrealistic, as though it flew in the face of the laws of arithmetic. But even before we get to the more basic structural changes in American society required to solve the economic crisis, there are obvious places where the resources could be obtained not just to erase the deficits, but also to greatly expand vital social services.
The two-year projected deficit of the state of Wisconsin is $3.6 billion, little more than a rounding error when considering the vast wealth of the American financial aristocracy. The Koch brothers, the ultra-right patrons of Governor Walker, could write a check to cover that deficit and still remain billionaires.
Let us consider, starting with the low-hanging fruit, where the money could be found to wipe out the deficits of all 50 states combined, which this year come to a projected $130 billion.
• The extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, enacted by a Democratic-controlled Congress in December with the approval of the Obama administration, pumps $700 billion over the next ten years into the pockets of the rich. Reclaiming two years of that tax windfall would eliminate all the state budget deficits combined.
• Total compensation at Wall Street banks and securities firms last year hit a record $135 billion, according to an analysis by the Wall Street Journal, on all-time-high revenue of $417 billion. The recipients of the Wall Street bailout could bail out the states out of their own pockets.
• *
•
(THE LARGEST EMPLOYER IN AMERICA IS WAL-MART. FIVE MEMBERS OF THE WALTON FAMILY EACH HAVE ASSETS OF $20 BILLION! WAL-MART IS ALSO THE LARGEST IMPORTER OF CHINESE CRAP, AND HIRES ILLEGALS!)
*
• The 400 richest individuals in the United States dispose of a staggering $1.37 trillion in assets, an average of nearly $350 million apiece. A levy of 10 percent on the resources of these billionaires would also erase the deficits of all 50 states.
• Combined profits for all American corporations rocketed upwards in 2010, hitting an annual rate of $1.66 trillion in the third quarter. A tax of eight percent on those profits—the same percentage as the cut Walker seeks to impose on schoolteachers and park rangers—would eliminate all state deficits.
• US corporations are currently sitting on $2 trillion in cash, refusing to hire workers despite collecting tax cuts that are supposed to be incentives to do so. A levy of 10 percent on that idle cash would provide enough money to eliminate not only the deficits of the states, but the deficits of all cities and local governments too, as well as preserving the jobs of hundreds of thousands of public employees.
• Hedge funds assets rose to $1.92 trillion in 2010, the highest ever, up from $1.18 trillion at the beginning of the year. Given a standard earnings formula of 2 percent of total assets plus 20 percent of the increase, hedge fund bosses stood to collect roughly $186 billion in personal income. An 80 percent tax on that income—less than the percentage rate on multimillionaires levied under the Eisenhower administration—would produce more than enough revenue to put all 50 states in the black. (It should be pointed out that the top hedge fund manager, John Paulson, had a personal net profit of more than $5 billion in 2010, while more than a dozen hedge fund bosses had personal incomes above $2 billion and many more took in over $1 billion).
Contrary to the claims of the politicians and the media, it is not difficult to find the money to close the state and local budget gaps, with enough left over to begin a massive social rebuilding program. Implementing just some of the above proposals would generate sufficient funds, for example, to provide jobs in the next two months for 5 million Americans.
While not themselves socialist measures, they would mark an important step in addressing social inequality and moving toward the structural changes—the nationalization of the banks and major corporations and their transformation into publicly owned utilities under the democratic control of the working population; the institution of democratic economic planning; the rational and progressive integration of the American and world economy—that are needed to solve the crisis, eliminate poverty and hunger, raise the living standards of the broad masses and end social inequality.
The problem is the entrenched power of the capitalist ruling class and its total domination of the political system. The two established parties, the Democrats as much as the Republicans, are wholly owned subsidiaries of the financial elite. Both parties defend the profits and property of the owners of the banks and giant corporations.
The working class, as Wisconsin demonstrates, is ready to fight to defend jobs, living standards and social services. But the old trade union organizations are thoroughly rotten. They are unshakably committed to the Democratic Party and the defense of capitalism, in which the unions are themselves sizeable shareholders, with the union leaders raking in six-figure salaries and perks.
Workers should reject the fraudulent claims that American society can no longer—in the 21st century!—afford decent schools, health care, housing and other necessities. The resources exist, produced by the labor of hundreds of millions of working people and appropriated by a tiny layer of exploiters at the top. These resources must be reclaimed for social use, to serve the needs of the working people who are the vast majority of the population.
This is a political fight, requiring a break with the Democrats and Republicans and the building of a mass socialist movement. The Socialist Equality Party, World Socialist Web Site, and International Students for Social Equality are sponsoring a series of conferences throughout the country in April to discuss the organizational forms and political program needed to conduct this struggle. We urge all our readers and all those who want to carry out a serious fight against the policies of the ruling class to make plans to attend today.
Patrick Martin
*
Obama’s 2010 campaign: Fake populism and right-wing policies
By Patrick Martin
22 October 2010
President Barack Obama began his longest campaign swing of the 2010 elections Wednesday, a four-day tour of the West Coast and Nevada to urge a vote for beleaguered Democratic Party candidates. At each stop, he warned that the outcome of the November 2 congressional election would set the direction of the country “for the next 20 years,” making dire predictions of the right-wing policies that a Republican-controlled Congress would carry out.
While his pseudo-populist rhetoric against Wall Street won applause at large rallies in Oregon and Washington, packed with college students, there is little practical difference between the policies the Obama administration is already implementing and the measures the Republicans would carry out if they return to power.
Obama suggested that the Republicans would “cut taxes for millionaires and billionaires,” “cut rules for special interests, including polluters” and “cut middle-class families loose to fend for themselves.” These charges would be a fair summary of the domestic policies of his own administration.
Continuing the bailout of Wall Street that was begun under Bush, the Obama administration has carried the largest handout of public funds to the wealthy in American history. This was followed up by the enactment last summer of a financial system “reform” bill so toothless that it punishes no one for the greatest outbreak of swindling in history.
The White House assiduously protected oil giant BP from the repercussions of the greatest environmental disaster in US history and last week lifted its moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.
As for leaving ordinary families “to fend for themselves,” the Obama administration has imposed the burden of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression on working class families, rejecting any serious action as mass unemployment, mass poverty and mass foreclosures have become permanent features of American life.
In the month leading up to the November 2 election, Obama has alternated speeches bashing the Republicans as tools of Wall Street with actions that demonstrate that the Democrats are no less committed to the defense of the financial aristocracy.
On the same day Obama boarded Air Force One to travel to the West Coast, the top administration official in the foreclosure crisis, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan, held a White House briefing to declare that “we have not found any evidence at this point of systemic issues” in the manufacture of hundreds of thousands of false legal documents by mortgage bankers.
Donovan rejected any blanket moratorium on foreclosures, claiming, “We are focused on the process early, to keep people in their homes, rather than focusing late, when it is much less likely that people will be able to stay in their homes.” Translated into plain English, the administration policy is to pressure homeowners not to fall behind on their payments, rather than to rescue those who face eviction.
In a column in the New Republic magazine, liberal commentator John B. Judis observed that on the question of home foreclosure, “President Obama’s approach more closely mirrors Herbert Hoover’s than FDR’s.” This was disastrous economically, he argued: “A recovery will depend on increasing consumer demand, not boosting bank capital. And to do that, the administration needs an effective program that will allow working Americans to liquidate their debts without being thrown out on the streets.”
The administration’s indifference was also disastrous politically, he complained, given that the states hardest hit by foreclosures include such electoral battlegrounds as Nevada, Florida, California, Michigan and Ohio. Judis concluded: “It’s the working-class voters who reluctantly backed Obama in 2008, but have been turned off by the impression that the administration cares more about the banks than about them. And there’s little in the administration’s rhetoric to persuade them otherwise.”
In his West Coast speeches, Obama sought to address the mounting economic discontent that is the driving force of the political debacle facing the Democratic Party. He admitted, “There’s no doubt this is a difficult election. It’s because we have been through an incredibly difficult time as a nation.”
This argument fails to explain, however, why the Republican Party has been able to make a political comeback—something it could not do in 1934, two years into the first term of Franklin Roosevelt, although unemployment was far higher than today and living conditions for broad masses of people were far worse.
Obama pointed to the record of the Republican administration of George W. Bush in the eight years that culminated in the Wall Street crash of 2008, but did not explain how, only two years later, this thoroughly corrupted and discredited party is on the verge of recapturing control of Congress.
Unlike Roosevelt, Obama has offered nothing in the way of public works programs to restore employment, or significant checks on the most flagrant forms of Wall Street speculation. This is not merely a personal failing, or, to put more it precisely, Obama’s obvious indifference to the plight of millions of working people is not peculiar to him. It is the attitude of the entire social class, the top one percent in American society, which all the Democratic and Republican politicians represent.
American capitalism is no longer able to provide any significant reform measures. It is an economically declining power, the largest debtor nation on the planet. Consequently, there is no constituency in the American financial aristocracy for economic policies that make any concessions to the masses. Hence the spectacle of record profits and bonuses on Wall Street, while the White House rejects any aid to jobless workers facing foreclosure and eviction.
White House officials concede, albeit not publicly and on the record, that they expect the Republican Party to win control of the House of Representatives, and the president’s main electoral focus has been to safeguard Democratic control of the Senate and of governorships of key states.
There are mounting indications that the administration not only expects to share power with the Republicans after November 2, but that the White House positively welcomes this prospect and is preparing a further shift to the right in both domestic and foreign policy.
In his interview with the New York Times magazine published on Sunday, Obama told reporter Peter Baker that Republican gains would not necessarily be a defeat for him. Baker wrote: “Obama expressed optimism to me that he could make common cause with Republicans after the midterm elections. ‘It may be that regardless of what happens after this election, they feel more responsible,’ he said, ‘either because they didn’t do as well as they anticipated, and so the strategy of just saying no to everything and sitting on the sidelines and throwing bombs didn’t work for them, or they did reasonably well, in which case the American people are going to be looking to them to offer serious proposals and work with me in a serious way.’”
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell responded by telling the Associated Press that he hoped to work more closely with Obama on tax cuts, trade agreements and other economic policies.
White House adviser Valerie Jarrett, one of Obama’s closest cronies, told the CBS program “The Early Show” Wednesday that Obama still held out hopes of bipartisan cooperation with the Republicans. “He’s not going to give up on that,” she said. “He’s going to keep trying, no matter who’s in Congress.”
Another area where bipartisan cooperation is already well established is in foreign policy, particularly in Obama’s continuation of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he has had greater support among congressional Republicans than among some sections of the Democratic Party. Obama retained Bush’s secretary of defense, Robert Gates, and escalated the Afghanistan war as troops became available from Iraq.
Obama was notably silent on foreign policy in his remarks to the first two rallies on the West Coast, where opposition to the Iraq war has been strong. The word “Afghanistan” did not appear in speeches in Portland or Seattle, and there was only one passing reference to Iraq, when he boasted of having withdrawn 100,000 troops from that country—without mentioning that more US troops are now deployed in the two countries than when George W. Bush was president
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GET THIS BOOK!
*
Obamanomics: How Barack Obama Is Bankrupting You and Enriching His Wall Street Friends, Corporate Lobbyists, and Union Bosses
BY TIMOTHY P CARNEY
Editorial Reviews
Obama Is Making You Poorer—But Who’s Getting Rich?
Goldman Sachs, GE, Pfizer, the United Auto Workers—the same “special interests” Barack Obama was supposed to chase from the temple—are profiting handsomely from Obama’s Big Government policies that crush taxpayers, small businesses, and consumers. In Obamanomics, investigative reporter Timothy P. Carney digs up the dirt the mainstream media ignores and the White House wishes you wouldn’t see. Rather than Hope and Change, Obama is delivering corporate socialism to America, all while claiming he’s battling corporate America. It’s corporate welfare and regulatory robbery—it’s Obamanomics.
Congressman Ron Paul says, “Every libertarian and free-market conservative needs to read Obamanomics.” And Johan Goldberg, columnist and bestselling author says, “Obamanomics is conservative muckraking at its best and an indispensable field guide to the Obama years.”
If you’ve wondered what’s happening to America, as the federal government swallows up the financial sector, the auto industry, and healthcare, and enacts deficit exploding “stimulus packages,” this book makes it all clear—it’s a big scam. Ultimately, Obamanomics boils down to this: every time government gets bigger, somebody’s getting rich, and those somebodies are friends of Barack. This book names the names—and it will make your blood boil.
*
Obama Is Making You Poorer—But Who’s Getting Rich?
Goldman Sachs, GE, Pfizer, the United Auto Workers—the same “special interests” Barack Obama was supposed to chase from the temple—are profiting handsomely from Obama’s Big Government policies that crush taxpayers, small businesses, and consumers.
Investigative reporter Timothy P. Carney digs up the dirt the mainstream media ignores and the White House wishes you wouldn’t see. Rather than Hope and Change, Obama is delivering corporate socialism to America, all while claiming he’s battling corporate America. It’s corporate welfare and regulatory robbery—it’s Obamanomics. In this explosive book, Carney reveals:
* The Great Health Care Scam—Obama’s backroom deals with drug companies spell corporate profits and more government control
* The Global Warming Hoax—Obama has bought off industries with a pork-filled bill that will drain your wallet for Al Gore’s agenda
* Obama and Wall Street—“Change” means more bailouts and a heavy Goldman Sachs presence in the West Wing (including Rahm Emanuel)
* Stimulating K Street—The largest spending bill in history gave pork to the well-connected and created a feeding frenzy for lobbyists
* How the GOP needs to change its tune—drastically—to battle Obamanomics
If you’ve wondered what’s happening to our country, as the federal government swallows up the financial sector, the auto industry, and healthcare, and enacts deficit exploding “stimulus packages” that create make-work government jobs, this book makes it all clear—it’s a big scam. Ultimately, Obamanomics boils down to this: every time government gets bigger, somebody’s getting rich, and those somebodies are friends of Barack. This book names the names—and it will make your blood boil.
*
Praise for Obamanomics
“The notion that ‘big business’ is on the side of the free market is one of progressivism’s most valuable myths. It allows them to demonize corporations by day and get in bed with them by night. Obamanomics is conservative muckraking at its best. It reveals how President Obama is exploiting the big business mythology to undermine the free market and stick it to entrepreneurs, taxpayers, and consumers. It’s an indispensable field guide to the Obama years.”
—Jonha Goldberg, LA Times columnist and best-selling author
“‘Every time government gets bigger, somebody’s getting rich.’ With this astute observation, Tim Carney begins his task of laying bare the Obama administration’s corporatist governing strategy, hidden behind the president’s populist veneer. This meticulously researched book is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand how Washington really works.”
—David Freddoso, best-selling author of The Case Against Barack Obama
“Every libertarian and free-market conservative who still believes that large corporations are trusted allies in the battle for economic liberty needs to read this book, as does every well-meaning liberal who believes that expansions of the welfare-regulatory state are done to benefit the common people.”
—Congressman Ron Paul
“It’s understandable for critics to condemn President Obama for his ‘socialism.’ But as Tim Carney shows, the real situation is at once more subtle and more sinister. Obamanomics favors big business while disproportionately punishing everyone else. So-called progressives are too clueless to notice, as usual, which is why we have Tim Carney and this book.”
—Thomas E. Woods, Jr., best-selling author of Meltdown and The Politically Incorrect Guide™ to American History
*
• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Regnery Press (November 30, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1596986123
• ISBN-13: 978-1596986121
*
Go to http://www.MEXICANOCCUPATION.blogspot.com and read articles and comments from other Americans on what they’ve witnessed in their communities around the country. While most of the population of California is now ILLEGAL, the problems, costs, assault to our culture by Mexico is EVERYWHERE. copy and pass it to your friends.
*
WHO SHOULD PAY FOR WALL STs RAPE & PILLAGE?
WHO SHOULD PAY FOR BEING MEXICO’S WELFARE, FREE BIRTHING CLINICS, JOBS AND JAILS LA RAZA DEMS’ PROGRAM IN OUR BORDERS?
OBAMA SAYS THE AMERICAN MIDDLE CLASS MUST, AND IS!
*
PRETTY MUCH THE WSWS RECOMMENDATIONS TO FIX THE STAGGERING COST FO WALL ST.s RAPE AND PILLAGE, IS AN INDICTMENT OF BARACK OBAMA’S TWO YEARS AS WALL ST.s REPRESENTATIVE.
NOTHING SUMS OF OBAMA’S WALL ST LEANING THAN THE FACT THAT HE BROUGHT ONE OF HIS BIGGEST DONORS, J.P. MORGAN TO OPERATE OUT OF THE WHITE HOUSE, AS DICK CHENEY OPERATED HALLIBURTON OUT OF HIS. THAT BEING J.P. MORGAN’S DALEY, WHO LIKE OBAMA, IS AN ADVOCATE FOR OPEN BORDERS TO KEEP WAGES DEPRESSED.
WHAT THE WSWS RECOMMENDATIONS DID NOT SUGGEST IS ENDING OUR BEING MEXICO’S WELFARE, ANCHOR BABY BIRTHING CENTERS, JOBS AND JAILS PROGRAM. CALIFORNIA ALONE PUTS OUT $20 BILLION A YEAR IN SOCIAL SERVICES TO ILLEGALS AND THERE IS NOT TALK OF ENDING THAT CORRUPTION. IN FACT, THERE IS NOT ONE LA RAZA DEM IN CA THAT IS NOT PUSHING FOR OBAMA’S OPEN BORDERS, AMNESTY OR AT LEAST CONTINUED NON-ENFORCEMENT OF LAWS PROHIBITING THE EMPLOYMENT OF ILLEGALS!
NO PRESIDENT IN HISTORY HAS WORKED TO BENEFIT A FOREIGN GOVERNMENT MORE THAN BARACK OBAMA HAS MEXICO! WHEN THE MEXICANS RANTS, OBAMA GOES LIMP. JUST AS HE DOES FOR HIS BANKSTERS!
THERE ARE NOW 38 MILLION MEX FLAG WAVER IN OUR BORDERS AND THE NUMBER OF SANCTUARY CITIES WHERE ILLEGALS ARE ABOVE THE LAW ARE GROWING RAPIDLY!
*
The US states’ budget crisis: Where should the money come from?
7 March 2011
Republican and Democratic governors in state after state claim they have no choice but to impose drastic cuts on the wages, health benefits and pensions of public employees, as well as slashing funding for education, health care and other vital social services. The states face intractable budget shortfalls, the argument goes. They have to cut because “there is no money.”
This is the main theme sounded by Governor Scott Walker in Wisconsin, who is snatching $300 million from state workers’ pockets and eliminating most of their collective bargaining rights as part of a $3.6 billion deficit reduction program. As he said in one television interview, “The bottom line is we are trying to balance our budget and there really is no room to negotiate on that because we’re broke.”
Democratic and Republican politicians in Washington, from House Speaker John Boehner to President Obama, agree with this diagnosis. “We’re broke,” Boehner declares on a regular basis to justify demands for more cuts. In his State of the Union speech, Obama said, “We have to confront the fact that our government spends more than it takes in. That is not sustainable.”
The corporate-controlled media parrots these claims, never questioning the unstated premise behind all these declarations of bankruptcy: the uncritical acceptance of the vast social polarization in America, with the piling up of untold riches by the financial elite and the accumulation, at the other pole of society, of unemployment, poverty and unmet social needs.
The media portrays opposition to budget cutting as irrational and unrealistic, as though it flew in the face of the laws of arithmetic. But even before we get to the more basic structural changes in American society required to solve the economic crisis, there are obvious places where the resources could be obtained not just to erase the deficits, but also to greatly expand vital social services.
The two-year projected deficit of the state of Wisconsin is $3.6 billion, little more than a rounding error when considering the vast wealth of the American financial aristocracy. The Koch brothers, the ultra-right patrons of Governor Walker, could write a check to cover that deficit and still remain billionaires.
Let us consider, starting with the low-hanging fruit, where the money could be found to wipe out the deficits of all 50 states combined, which this year come to a projected $130 billion.
• The extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, enacted by a Democratic-controlled Congress in December with the approval of the Obama administration, pumps $700 billion over the next ten years into the pockets of the rich. Reclaiming two years of that tax windfall would eliminate all the state budget deficits combined.
• Total compensation at Wall Street banks and securities firms last year hit a record $135 billion, according to an analysis by the Wall Street Journal, on all-time-high revenue of $417 billion. The recipients of the Wall Street bailout could bail out the states out of their own pockets.
• *
•
(THE LARGEST EMPLOYER IN AMERICA IS WAL-MART. FIVE MEMBERS OF THE WALTON FAMILY EACH HAVE ASSETS OF $20 BILLION! WAL-MART IS ALSO THE LARGEST IMPORTER OF CHINESE CRAP, AND HIRES ILLEGALS!)
*
• The 400 richest individuals in the United States dispose of a staggering $1.37 trillion in assets, an average of nearly $350 million apiece. A levy of 10 percent on the resources of these billionaires would also erase the deficits of all 50 states.
• Combined profits for all American corporations rocketed upwards in 2010, hitting an annual rate of $1.66 trillion in the third quarter. A tax of eight percent on those profits—the same percentage as the cut Walker seeks to impose on schoolteachers and park rangers—would eliminate all state deficits.
• US corporations are currently sitting on $2 trillion in cash, refusing to hire workers despite collecting tax cuts that are supposed to be incentives to do so. A levy of 10 percent on that idle cash would provide enough money to eliminate not only the deficits of the states, but the deficits of all cities and local governments too, as well as preserving the jobs of hundreds of thousands of public employees.
• Hedge funds assets rose to $1.92 trillion in 2010, the highest ever, up from $1.18 trillion at the beginning of the year. Given a standard earnings formula of 2 percent of total assets plus 20 percent of the increase, hedge fund bosses stood to collect roughly $186 billion in personal income. An 80 percent tax on that income—less than the percentage rate on multimillionaires levied under the Eisenhower administration—would produce more than enough revenue to put all 50 states in the black. (It should be pointed out that the top hedge fund manager, John Paulson, had a personal net profit of more than $5 billion in 2010, while more than a dozen hedge fund bosses had personal incomes above $2 billion and many more took in over $1 billion).
Contrary to the claims of the politicians and the media, it is not difficult to find the money to close the state and local budget gaps, with enough left over to begin a massive social rebuilding program. Implementing just some of the above proposals would generate sufficient funds, for example, to provide jobs in the next two months for 5 million Americans.
While not themselves socialist measures, they would mark an important step in addressing social inequality and moving toward the structural changes—the nationalization of the banks and major corporations and their transformation into publicly owned utilities under the democratic control of the working population; the institution of democratic economic planning; the rational and progressive integration of the American and world economy—that are needed to solve the crisis, eliminate poverty and hunger, raise the living standards of the broad masses and end social inequality.
The problem is the entrenched power of the capitalist ruling class and its total domination of the political system. The two established parties, the Democrats as much as the Republicans, are wholly owned subsidiaries of the financial elite. Both parties defend the profits and property of the owners of the banks and giant corporations.
The working class, as Wisconsin demonstrates, is ready to fight to defend jobs, living standards and social services. But the old trade union organizations are thoroughly rotten. They are unshakably committed to the Democratic Party and the defense of capitalism, in which the unions are themselves sizeable shareholders, with the union leaders raking in six-figure salaries and perks.
Workers should reject the fraudulent claims that American society can no longer—in the 21st century!—afford decent schools, health care, housing and other necessities. The resources exist, produced by the labor of hundreds of millions of working people and appropriated by a tiny layer of exploiters at the top. These resources must be reclaimed for social use, to serve the needs of the working people who are the vast majority of the population.
This is a political fight, requiring a break with the Democrats and Republicans and the building of a mass socialist movement. The Socialist Equality Party, World Socialist Web Site, and International Students for Social Equality are sponsoring a series of conferences throughout the country in April to discuss the organizational forms and political program needed to conduct this struggle. We urge all our readers and all those who want to carry out a serious fight against the policies of the ruling class to make plans to attend today.
Patrick Martin
*
Obama’s 2010 campaign: Fake populism and right-wing policies
By Patrick Martin
22 October 2010
President Barack Obama began his longest campaign swing of the 2010 elections Wednesday, a four-day tour of the West Coast and Nevada to urge a vote for beleaguered Democratic Party candidates. At each stop, he warned that the outcome of the November 2 congressional election would set the direction of the country “for the next 20 years,” making dire predictions of the right-wing policies that a Republican-controlled Congress would carry out.
While his pseudo-populist rhetoric against Wall Street won applause at large rallies in Oregon and Washington, packed with college students, there is little practical difference between the policies the Obama administration is already implementing and the measures the Republicans would carry out if they return to power.
Obama suggested that the Republicans would “cut taxes for millionaires and billionaires,” “cut rules for special interests, including polluters” and “cut middle-class families loose to fend for themselves.” These charges would be a fair summary of the domestic policies of his own administration.
Continuing the bailout of Wall Street that was begun under Bush, the Obama administration has carried the largest handout of public funds to the wealthy in American history. This was followed up by the enactment last summer of a financial system “reform” bill so toothless that it punishes no one for the greatest outbreak of swindling in history.
The White House assiduously protected oil giant BP from the repercussions of the greatest environmental disaster in US history and last week lifted its moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.
As for leaving ordinary families “to fend for themselves,” the Obama administration has imposed the burden of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression on working class families, rejecting any serious action as mass unemployment, mass poverty and mass foreclosures have become permanent features of American life.
In the month leading up to the November 2 election, Obama has alternated speeches bashing the Republicans as tools of Wall Street with actions that demonstrate that the Democrats are no less committed to the defense of the financial aristocracy.
On the same day Obama boarded Air Force One to travel to the West Coast, the top administration official in the foreclosure crisis, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan, held a White House briefing to declare that “we have not found any evidence at this point of systemic issues” in the manufacture of hundreds of thousands of false legal documents by mortgage bankers.
Donovan rejected any blanket moratorium on foreclosures, claiming, “We are focused on the process early, to keep people in their homes, rather than focusing late, when it is much less likely that people will be able to stay in their homes.” Translated into plain English, the administration policy is to pressure homeowners not to fall behind on their payments, rather than to rescue those who face eviction.
In a column in the New Republic magazine, liberal commentator John B. Judis observed that on the question of home foreclosure, “President Obama’s approach more closely mirrors Herbert Hoover’s than FDR’s.” This was disastrous economically, he argued: “A recovery will depend on increasing consumer demand, not boosting bank capital. And to do that, the administration needs an effective program that will allow working Americans to liquidate their debts without being thrown out on the streets.”
The administration’s indifference was also disastrous politically, he complained, given that the states hardest hit by foreclosures include such electoral battlegrounds as Nevada, Florida, California, Michigan and Ohio. Judis concluded: “It’s the working-class voters who reluctantly backed Obama in 2008, but have been turned off by the impression that the administration cares more about the banks than about them. And there’s little in the administration’s rhetoric to persuade them otherwise.”
In his West Coast speeches, Obama sought to address the mounting economic discontent that is the driving force of the political debacle facing the Democratic Party. He admitted, “There’s no doubt this is a difficult election. It’s because we have been through an incredibly difficult time as a nation.”
This argument fails to explain, however, why the Republican Party has been able to make a political comeback—something it could not do in 1934, two years into the first term of Franklin Roosevelt, although unemployment was far higher than today and living conditions for broad masses of people were far worse.
Obama pointed to the record of the Republican administration of George W. Bush in the eight years that culminated in the Wall Street crash of 2008, but did not explain how, only two years later, this thoroughly corrupted and discredited party is on the verge of recapturing control of Congress.
Unlike Roosevelt, Obama has offered nothing in the way of public works programs to restore employment, or significant checks on the most flagrant forms of Wall Street speculation. This is not merely a personal failing, or, to put more it precisely, Obama’s obvious indifference to the plight of millions of working people is not peculiar to him. It is the attitude of the entire social class, the top one percent in American society, which all the Democratic and Republican politicians represent.
American capitalism is no longer able to provide any significant reform measures. It is an economically declining power, the largest debtor nation on the planet. Consequently, there is no constituency in the American financial aristocracy for economic policies that make any concessions to the masses. Hence the spectacle of record profits and bonuses on Wall Street, while the White House rejects any aid to jobless workers facing foreclosure and eviction.
White House officials concede, albeit not publicly and on the record, that they expect the Republican Party to win control of the House of Representatives, and the president’s main electoral focus has been to safeguard Democratic control of the Senate and of governorships of key states.
There are mounting indications that the administration not only expects to share power with the Republicans after November 2, but that the White House positively welcomes this prospect and is preparing a further shift to the right in both domestic and foreign policy.
In his interview with the New York Times magazine published on Sunday, Obama told reporter Peter Baker that Republican gains would not necessarily be a defeat for him. Baker wrote: “Obama expressed optimism to me that he could make common cause with Republicans after the midterm elections. ‘It may be that regardless of what happens after this election, they feel more responsible,’ he said, ‘either because they didn’t do as well as they anticipated, and so the strategy of just saying no to everything and sitting on the sidelines and throwing bombs didn’t work for them, or they did reasonably well, in which case the American people are going to be looking to them to offer serious proposals and work with me in a serious way.’”
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell responded by telling the Associated Press that he hoped to work more closely with Obama on tax cuts, trade agreements and other economic policies.
White House adviser Valerie Jarrett, one of Obama’s closest cronies, told the CBS program “The Early Show” Wednesday that Obama still held out hopes of bipartisan cooperation with the Republicans. “He’s not going to give up on that,” she said. “He’s going to keep trying, no matter who’s in Congress.”
Another area where bipartisan cooperation is already well established is in foreign policy, particularly in Obama’s continuation of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he has had greater support among congressional Republicans than among some sections of the Democratic Party. Obama retained Bush’s secretary of defense, Robert Gates, and escalated the Afghanistan war as troops became available from Iraq.
Obama was notably silent on foreign policy in his remarks to the first two rallies on the West Coast, where opposition to the Iraq war has been strong. The word “Afghanistan” did not appear in speeches in Portland or Seattle, and there was only one passing reference to Iraq, when he boasted of having withdrawn 100,000 troops from that country—without mentioning that more US troops are now deployed in the two countries than when George W. Bush was president
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GET THIS BOOK!
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Obamanomics: How Barack Obama Is Bankrupting You and Enriching His Wall Street Friends, Corporate Lobbyists, and Union Bosses
BY TIMOTHY P CARNEY
Editorial Reviews
Obama Is Making You Poorer—But Who’s Getting Rich?
Goldman Sachs, GE, Pfizer, the United Auto Workers—the same “special interests” Barack Obama was supposed to chase from the temple—are profiting handsomely from Obama’s Big Government policies that crush taxpayers, small businesses, and consumers. In Obamanomics, investigative reporter Timothy P. Carney digs up the dirt the mainstream media ignores and the White House wishes you wouldn’t see. Rather than Hope and Change, Obama is delivering corporate socialism to America, all while claiming he’s battling corporate America. It’s corporate welfare and regulatory robbery—it’s Obamanomics.
Congressman Ron Paul says, “Every libertarian and free-market conservative needs to read Obamanomics.” And Johan Goldberg, columnist and bestselling author says, “Obamanomics is conservative muckraking at its best and an indispensable field guide to the Obama years.”
If you’ve wondered what’s happening to America, as the federal government swallows up the financial sector, the auto industry, and healthcare, and enacts deficit exploding “stimulus packages,” this book makes it all clear—it’s a big scam. Ultimately, Obamanomics boils down to this: every time government gets bigger, somebody’s getting rich, and those somebodies are friends of Barack. This book names the names—and it will make your blood boil.
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Obama Is Making You Poorer—But Who’s Getting Rich?
Goldman Sachs, GE, Pfizer, the United Auto Workers—the same “special interests” Barack Obama was supposed to chase from the temple—are profiting handsomely from Obama’s Big Government policies that crush taxpayers, small businesses, and consumers.
Investigative reporter Timothy P. Carney digs up the dirt the mainstream media ignores and the White House wishes you wouldn’t see. Rather than Hope and Change, Obama is delivering corporate socialism to America, all while claiming he’s battling corporate America. It’s corporate welfare and regulatory robbery—it’s Obamanomics. In this explosive book, Carney reveals:
* The Great Health Care Scam—Obama’s backroom deals with drug companies spell corporate profits and more government control
* The Global Warming Hoax—Obama has bought off industries with a pork-filled bill that will drain your wallet for Al Gore’s agenda
* Obama and Wall Street—“Change” means more bailouts and a heavy Goldman Sachs presence in the West Wing (including Rahm Emanuel)
* Stimulating K Street—The largest spending bill in history gave pork to the well-connected and created a feeding frenzy for lobbyists
* How the GOP needs to change its tune—drastically—to battle Obamanomics
If you’ve wondered what’s happening to our country, as the federal government swallows up the financial sector, the auto industry, and healthcare, and enacts deficit exploding “stimulus packages” that create make-work government jobs, this book makes it all clear—it’s a big scam. Ultimately, Obamanomics boils down to this: every time government gets bigger, somebody’s getting rich, and those somebodies are friends of Barack. This book names the names—and it will make your blood boil.
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Praise for Obamanomics
“The notion that ‘big business’ is on the side of the free market is one of progressivism’s most valuable myths. It allows them to demonize corporations by day and get in bed with them by night. Obamanomics is conservative muckraking at its best. It reveals how President Obama is exploiting the big business mythology to undermine the free market and stick it to entrepreneurs, taxpayers, and consumers. It’s an indispensable field guide to the Obama years.”
—Jonha Goldberg, LA Times columnist and best-selling author
“‘Every time government gets bigger, somebody’s getting rich.’ With this astute observation, Tim Carney begins his task of laying bare the Obama administration’s corporatist governing strategy, hidden behind the president’s populist veneer. This meticulously researched book is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand how Washington really works.”
—David Freddoso, best-selling author of The Case Against Barack Obama
“Every libertarian and free-market conservative who still believes that large corporations are trusted allies in the battle for economic liberty needs to read this book, as does every well-meaning liberal who believes that expansions of the welfare-regulatory state are done to benefit the common people.”
—Congressman Ron Paul
“It’s understandable for critics to condemn President Obama for his ‘socialism.’ But as Tim Carney shows, the real situation is at once more subtle and more sinister. Obamanomics favors big business while disproportionately punishing everyone else. So-called progressives are too clueless to notice, as usual, which is why we have Tim Carney and this book.”
—Thomas E. Woods, Jr., best-selling author of Meltdown and The Politically Incorrect Guide™ to American History
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• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Regnery Press (November 30, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1596986123
• ISBN-13: 978-1596986121
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