NO PRESIDENT IN HISTORY HAS ORCHESTRATED AS GREAT A TRANSFER OF WEALTH TO THE FINANCIAL SECTOR AS BARACK OBAMA.
HILLARY CLINTON IS THE OBVIOUS SUCCESSOR TO OBAMA-CLINTONOMICS HENCE THE REASON OBAMA'S CRONY BANKSTERS HAVE HANDED HER, BILLARY AND THEIR PHONY CLINTON FOUNDATION MILLIONS IN BRIBES!
"Moreover, given the fact that Clinton, the Democratic frontrunner, has wrapped herself in Obama’s mantle, the president’s statements are a clear indication that her presidency would be even more hostile to the needs and sentiments of broad masses of the population as that of Obama."
These policies were designed to have precisely the effect they did: driving the stock market, as Obama boasted in the interview, “from in the 6,000s to 16,000 or 17,000.” This helped ensure that the wealth of America’s richest 400 individuals nearly doubled, from $1.27 trillion in 2009 to $2.34 trillion in 2015.
"The fact that in the midst of such a tumultuous election campaign, Obama feels it is appropriate to make such statements is a testament to the contemptuous attitude of the financial elite of which he is a part, who see the great majority of the population as ignorant dupes that would be happy if they only realized how good they have it."
Obama touts an economic "legacy" of inequality and poverty
Obama touts an economic "legacy" of inequality and poverty
29 April 2016
In an interview published Thursday in the New York Times, US President Barack Obama expressed his “frustration” at the persistent belief of the American people that their economic circumstances are not improving.Obama declared that despite the fact that his administration managed the 2008 financial crisis “better than any large economy on Earth in modern history,” leading to an economic recovery that “outpaced that of every other advanced nation,” his efforts were, in the words of reporter Andre Ross Sorkin, “vastly under-appreciated” by the US population, a fact that left the president “frustrated.”
Obama’s comments were a continuation of a theme laid out by Obama in March, when he declared “America is pretty darn great right now” and disparaged “an alternative reality out there from some of the political folks that America is down in the dumps.”
The problem according to Obama, channeling the sadistic prison warden in the 1967 film Cool Hand Luke, is a “failure to communicate.” He told Sorkin, “We were moving so fast early on that we couldn’t take victory laps. We couldn’t explain everything we were doing. I mean, one day we’re saving the banks; the next day we’re saving the auto industry; the next day we’re trying to see whether we can have some impact on the housing market.”
Obama attributed the feelings of the US population—according to one poll, 64 percent believe the economy is still in recession—to disaster-mongering by the Republican Party. “If you have a political party—in this case, the Republicans—that denies any progress and is constantly channeling to their base, which is sizable, say, 40 percent of the population, that things are terrible all the time, then people will start absorbing that.”
Obama made these statements in the context of an election campaign that has been dominated by enormous anger over social inequality and Wall Street criminality, which has found expression in broad support for the campaign of “socialist” Bernie Sanders, as well as, in distorted form, that of the quasi-fascistic Donald Trump.
The fact that in the midst of such a tumultuous election campaign, Obama feels it is appropriate to make such statements is a testament to the contemptuous attitude of the financial elite of which he is a part, who see the great majority of the population as ignorant dupes that would be happy if they only realized how good they have it.
Any serious look at economic realities for working people in the US makes clear that this widespread anger is entirely justified.
During the decade between 2005 and 2015, seven years of which Obama was president, all net job growth was accounted for by people working in “alternative work arrangements,” or those working as independent contractors, temps, through contract agencies or on-call. In 2013, a typical American household had 40 percent less wealth than it did in 2007. The yearly income of a typical US household dropped by a massive 12 percent, or $6,400, in the six years between 2007 and 2013.
Suicide and mortality rates are soaring, while life expectancy is falling for a significant share of the population. Drug overdoses are becoming an epidemic, and the gap between the expected lifespan of the top and bottom 1 percent has reached nearly 15 years.
To the extent that Obama accepts the existence of any of these social realities, he merely presents them as inevitable byproducts of “sweeping changes transforming the global economy,” outside of and working counter to his administration’s supposedly egalitarian economic policies. Sorkin sums up Obama’s views with the statement, “We’re not only losing jobs to overseas competition, we’re losing them to technology.” In other words, automation and globalization, and not the White House, are to blame for the growing economic distress felt by broad sections of the American population.
But any sober assessment of the policies described in Obama’s interview makes clear that the growth of social inequality and the impoverishment of working people under the Obama administration were the deliberate and predictable outcome of the White House’s economic agenda.
The Obama administration presided over a sweeping restructuring of social relations in the US in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, eliminating decent jobs, incentivizing companies to gut health care, and carrying out an all-out assault on workers’ pension benefits, while providing essentially unlimited amounts of cash for the financial elite.
Even before taking office, Obama proved himself a vociferous defender of the social prerogatives of the financial oligarchy. In his interview with the Times, he recalls his role as a presidential candidate in whipping the Democratic Party into line behind the Bush administration’s 2008 plan to bail out the banks, lending them trillions of dollars essentially interest-free, while doing nothing to hold those responsible for the financial crash to account.
With large sections of the Republican Party coming out in opposition to the Bush administration’s bank bailout, and some Democrats inclined to make at least a rhetorical show of opposition, candidate Obama, “convinced that anything short of a major bailout could lead to economic catastrophe, said Democrats should back [Treasury Secretary] Paulson’s plan. They did.”
Once Obama came into office, the White House imposed wage and benefit cuts on workers. The Obama administration’s much-touted 2009 auto bailout was contingent on slashing the wages and benefits of autoworkers, helping produce record profits for auto makers.
These policies were designed to have precisely the effect they did: driving the stock market, as Obama boasted in the interview, “from in the 6,000s to 16,000 or 17,000.” This helped ensure that the wealth of America’s richest 400 individuals nearly doubled, from $1.27 trillion in 2009 to $2.34 trillion in 2015.
Despite their occasional invocations of the growth of social inequality and the economic distress facing large sections of the US population, the campaigns of Democratic presidential nominees Hilary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are notable for the complete absence of any criticism of Obama’s economic policies, which they consistently single out for praise.
Moreover, given the fact that Clinton, the Democratic frontrunner, has wrapped herself in Obama’s mantle, the president’s statements are a clear indication that her presidency would be even more hostile to the needs and sentiments of broad masses of the population as that of Obama.
“The Clintons function as kind of a political Mafia,”
WATCH: Trailer for ‘Clinton Cash’ Movie Premiering During Cannes Film Festival
WATCH THE DOCUMENTARY - HILLARY SUCKS IN THE BRIBES!
here:
A new documentary film based on Peter Schweizer’s bestselling book “Clinton Cash” is premiering next month during the Cannes Film Festival. Watch the trailer above. The following is the press release about the film.
***
A Film Based on the Book the New York Times Called “The Most Feared Book of a Presidential Cycle” to Premiere at Cannes
Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich (published May 2015 by HarperCollins) dominated headlines for months as the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall St. Journal and others confirmed the book’s investigative revelations of foreign donors and companies funneling tens of millions of dollars to Hillary and Bill Clinton. As Harvard Law School Professor Lawrence Lessig wrote in the Washington Post, “On any fair reading, the pattern of behavior that Schweizer has charged is corruption.”
Schweizer is editor-at-large of Breitbart News. The author of four New York Times bestsellers, including Clinton Cash, and Throw Them All Out, Schweizer’s investigative reporting has been covered by virtually every major U.S. media outlet, including: 60 Minutes, The New York Times, NPR, Wall Street Journal, ABC News, CNN, Forbes, Newsweek, Fox News, Politico, MSNBC, myriad others.
Clinton Cash investigates how Bill and Hillary Clinton went from being “dead broke” after leaving the White House to amassing a net worth of over $150 million, with $2 billion in donations to their foundation, wealth accumulated during Mrs. Clinton’s tenure as Sec. of State through lucrative speaking fees and contracts paid for by foreign companies and Clinton Foundation donors.
Clinton Cash has been lauded by top progressives for its exposure of crony capitalism and self-enrichment. Jeffrey D. Sachs, Columbia University Earth Institute Director, called it “compelling reading on how Bill and Hillary have mixed personal wealth, power, and influence peddling.” Daily Beast columnist Eleanor Clift calls Schweizer “an equal-opportunity investigator, snaring Republicans as well as Democrats.” And Demos Senior Fellow Nomi Prins says Clinton Cash “provides a damning portrait of elite and circumspect power and influence.”
The film was directed by M. A. Taylor.
Peter Schweizer, who says of the film, “Cronyism and self-enrichment are a bipartisan affair, and Hillary and Bill Clinton have perfected them on a global scale,” will be in Cannes.
Also attending is Stephen K. Bannon, writer and producer of Clinton Cash. Bannon, a former Goldman Sachs banker, is the Executive Chairman of Breitbart News and was dubbed by Bloomberg as “the Most Dangerous Political Operative in America.”
Bannon says, “This film must be seen by every liberal, progressive, and independent voter in America, and the world, to fully realize the degree to which the Clinton’s are nothing more than high class grifters”
Dan Fleuette, producer of Clinton Cash, Occupy Unmasked, and Los Abandonados, will also be at the festival.
Global sales are being represented by Mark Holdom of ARC Entertainment.
Sharp rise in US suicide rate
OBAMA-CLINTONOMICS AND THE FINAL DEATH OF THE AMERICAN MIDDLE CLASS
Sharp rise in US suicide rate
Eighty percent increase among middle-aged white women
By
Kate Randall
23 April 2016
The suicide rate in the United States has increased sharply since
the beginning of the current century, according to federal data released
Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The
increase is led by a particularly sharp rise in suicide among
middle-aged white people, especially women.The study by the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics follows recent reports documenting a decline in life expectancy among whites and sharp increases in lifespan divergences between rich and poor in America. As with life expectancy, the incidence of suicide is a key barometer of the health of a society. The rise in the rate at which people choose to take their own lives is yet another indication of the social crisis gripping America.
The new data shows that the age-adjusted suicide rate in the US jumped 24 percent between 1999 and 2014, from 10.5 per 100,000 people to 13 per 100,000 people. The figures show a 1.0 percent annual increase in suicide between 1999 and 2006 and a 2 percent yearly rise from 2007 to 2014. In total, 42,773 people died from suicide in 2014 compared to 29,199 in 1999.
The accelerated rise in the suicide rate from 2007 to 2014 coincides with the Great Recession and its aftermath and demonstrates the tragic impact of economic distress on significant layers of the population. Other contributing factors cited by the study’s authors include rising drug addiction and overdoses, growing divorce rates among older Americans, increased social isolation and a health care system ill-equipped to deal with mental health issues and suicide prevention.
Over the period of the study, the suicide rate for women aged 45-64 jumped by 63 percent and by 43 percent for men in the same age range. White middle-aged women had a shocking 80 percent increase in suicide during this period, three to four times higher than for females in other racial and ethnic groups.
Suicide rates for non-Hispanic black females rose by 0.8 percent among women 45-64; the rate for Hispanic women in this age group rose by 0.7 percent. Non-Hispanic black males were the only racial and ethnic group of either sex to have a lower suicide rate in 2014 than in 1999, declining by 8 percent.
The suicide rate in the American Indian and Alaska Native population surged from 1999 to 2014, rising by 90 percent for women and 38 percent for men. Among this group, 188 women and 348 men took their own lives in 2014.
Suicides among men were still more than three times the rate among women in 2014, but the study shows that the gap between the genders is closing. The higher rate among men is in part attributed to a higher suicide success rate through the use of firearms, fatal jumps and other methods.
Although based on a small number of suicides when compared to other age groups (150 in 2014), the suicide rate for females aged 10-14 had the largest percentage increase, tripling from 0.5 per 100,000 in 1999 to 1.5 per 100,000 in 2014. The suicide rate increased for women in all age groups except those 75 and above, where it declined by 11 percent.
Suicide rates for males were also higher in 2014 than in 1999 for all age groups under 75 years. However, despite an 8 percent decline for men 75 and older, this age group saw the highest rate of suicide in 2014, with 38.8 per 100,000, or 3,106 male seniors, taking their own lives.
The data shows that from 1999 to 2014, the percentages of suicides involving firearms and poisoning declined, while those involving suffocation increased. For both males and females, about one in four suicides in 2014 was attributable to suffocation, which includes hanging, self-strangulation and other methods of asphyxia. Experts note that such suicides are difficult to prevent as almost all people have the means to carry them out.
Poisoning was the most common method of suicide for women in 2014, making up about one-third of all female suicides. Poisoning agents include prescription opioids, heroin and other toxic substances. While accidental overdoses from opioids have skyrocketed in recent years, purposeful fatal overdoses have also increased.
The most frequent “other” suicide methods for females in 2014 were falls (2.8 percent) and drowning (1.4 percent). For males, “other” methods included falls (2.2 percent) and cutting or piercing (1.9 percent).
According to the CDC data, 33,113 people committed suicide in 2014. Suicide is one of the 10 leading causes of death for Americans. While death rates for major killers such as some cancers and heart disease have seen a long-term decline in recent decades, the suicide rate is rising precipitously.
Psychiatric conditions--including depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia--as well as other chronic medical problems undeniably play a role in suicide. The lack of access to high quality, affordable medical care leads to isolation and marginalization for increasing numbers of those in need of counseling and treatment.
The intersection of these very real medical and mental health issues with the economic devastation faced by millions in 21st century America is pushing increasing numbers of people over the brink. While the Obama administration declared economic “recovery” from the recession in mid-2009, the reality is starkly different for the vast majority of Americans today.
The new CDC study does not break down the incidence of suicide by income level, but its victims are undoubtedly predominantly poor, working class and lower middle class, similar to those in recent studies on US life expectancy.
America is a society in which growing numbers of people survive on low-wage, part-time, temporary and contingent jobs, often holding down two or more jobs to make ends meet. Working families are burdened by soaring medical costs and rising mortgage or rent payments. Many college graduates are saddled with debt and unable to find secure and decent-paying work. Veterans suffer from post-traumatic stress syndrome. Retirees are unable to survive on paltry Social Security benefits. Millions have been driven out of the labor market and subsist at the margins of society.
This reality does not enter into the current presidential campaign debate. While “democratic socialist” Bernie Sanders rails against the “billionaire class,” the main aim of his campaign is to divert growing anti-capitalist sentiment among workers and young people back into the confines of the Democratic Party. A longtime ally of the Democrats and defender of capitalism, he has pledged to support the Democratic frontrunner, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a personification of militarism and corruption, should she secure the nomination.
Billionaire businessman Donald Trump, the likely Republican candidate, promotes a fascistic and anti-working class agenda, scapegoating immigrants and Muslims. None of the candidates of the political establishment have answers to the economic and social crisis and the personal toll it takes on working people and youth.
THE REAL PRICE OF OBAMA-CLINTONOMICS ON THE AMERICA MIDDLE CLASS IS DEATH!
U.S. suicides have soared since 1999, CDC report says
Driven
by stark increases in the numbers of white women and Native Americans
who are taking their own lives, suicide rates in the United States
jumped 24% in the years between 1999 and 2014, a new government report
says.
Following a slow-but-steady rise in suicides from 1999, the yearly increase accelerated after 2006, as Americans' financial woes mounted and a battering recession settled in. Between 2006 and 2014, the report shows, the annual rise in the U.S. suicide rate jumped from 1% to 2%. Suicide rates climbed among men and women, and in all age groups between 10 and 74 years old.
Suicide rates among non-Latino American Indians and Alaska Natives were, in 1999, already the highest of any ethnic group, despite being widely underreported. By 2014, roughly 1 in 2,000 men in this ethnic group committed suicide, a 60% increase over the suicide rate among male American Indians and Alaska Natives that prevailed in 1999.
Among all men under 75, suicides surged. In the age group most prone to suicide -- 45 to 64 -- almost 30 in 1,000 men took their lives in 2014, a 43% increase over 1999's rate. Non-Latino black males were the only racial or ethnic group of either gender to have a lower suicide rate in 2014 than in 1999.
All told, 42,773 Americans died of suicide in 2014, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That made suicide the 10th leading cause of death for all ages."This is definitely harrowing: The overall massiveness of the increase is to me the biggest shocker--the fact that it touched pretty much every group," said Katherine A. Hempstead, who recently published an analysis of U.S. suicide trends in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
Hempstead, director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, noted that the surging suicide rate among women--a group that has traditionally committed suicide at a far lower rate than men--was especially significant. Though nearly four times as many men as women kill themselves, suicide rates among women grew much faster than those among men.
"That we've started to see the gender gap close is shocking," said Hempstead, who was not involved in the current study.
Among all women younger than 75, suicide rates grew across the age spectrum. But in the age group of greatest vulnerability--women between 45 and 64--the rate of suicide in 2014 vaulted 80% over 1999's rates.
Among girls 5 to 15 years old--a segment of the population among whom suicide was a rare phenomenon in 1999--rates of suicide tripled between 1999 and 2014, with one suicide yearly for every 6,660 of these girls.
Hempstead's earlier published study of American suicide rates ended with 2010, and had documented a steep rise that appeared strongly related to financial distress and job problems. That that trend continued for four more years may reflect that "the benefits of the recovery have not been shared by all," said Hempstead. Recent reports that nonlethal forms self-harm--drug overdoses and alcohol-related diseases--have begun to erode Americans' life expectancy also underscore the lingering effects of economic hardship on many, she added.
The new report, issued Thursday by the CDC's Center for Health Statistics, also offers a grim look into the changing means by which American suicide victims took their lives. Among both men and women, the 1999-2014 period saw a shift away from the use of firearms, pills and poisons. In 2014, 1 in 4 suicides was by suffocation (hanging, strangulation or suffocation), up from 1 in 5 in 1999.
Firearms continued to be the preferred means of suicide by male victims, occurring in 55.4% of the cases in 2014. Among women, firearms followed close behind poisoning as a favored means of suicide, accounting for 31% of female suicides in 2014.
These facts underscore the importance of coaxing from those in crisis the pills, poison or guns they might use to carry out a suicide, said Catherine Barber, director of the Means Matter Campaign at Harvard's School of Public Health.
Research suggests that many who attempt suicide act on impulse--and when a gun is available, their attempts are vastly more likely to succeed. By contrast, 9 out of 10 people who attempt suicide and survive will not go on to die by their own hand, suggesting that removing the means to commit such an act is not a gesture doomed to fail.
"Often, the moment for a friend to intervene is related to a crisis that is going to resolve, like a divorce," said Barber. "A friend can offer optimism: 'We'll get through this,'" said Barber. "A friendly way of showing concern" would be to offer to hold a distressed person's firearms until the crisis has passed, she added.
Following a slow-but-steady rise in suicides from 1999, the yearly increase accelerated after 2006, as Americans' financial woes mounted and a battering recession settled in. Between 2006 and 2014, the report shows, the annual rise in the U.S. suicide rate jumped from 1% to 2%. Suicide rates climbed among men and women, and in all age groups between 10 and 74 years old.
Suicide rates among non-Latino American Indians and Alaska Natives were, in 1999, already the highest of any ethnic group, despite being widely underreported. By 2014, roughly 1 in 2,000 men in this ethnic group committed suicide, a 60% increase over the suicide rate among male American Indians and Alaska Natives that prevailed in 1999.
Among all men under 75, suicides surged. In the age group most prone to suicide -- 45 to 64 -- almost 30 in 1,000 men took their lives in 2014, a 43% increase over 1999's rate. Non-Latino black males were the only racial or ethnic group of either gender to have a lower suicide rate in 2014 than in 1999.
All told, 42,773 Americans died of suicide in 2014, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That made suicide the 10th leading cause of death for all ages."This is definitely harrowing: The overall massiveness of the increase is to me the biggest shocker--the fact that it touched pretty much every group," said Katherine A. Hempstead, who recently published an analysis of U.S. suicide trends in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
Hempstead, director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, noted that the surging suicide rate among women--a group that has traditionally committed suicide at a far lower rate than men--was especially significant. Though nearly four times as many men as women kill themselves, suicide rates among women grew much faster than those among men.
"That we've started to see the gender gap close is shocking," said Hempstead, who was not involved in the current study.
Among all women younger than 75, suicide rates grew across the age spectrum. But in the age group of greatest vulnerability--women between 45 and 64--the rate of suicide in 2014 vaulted 80% over 1999's rates.
Among girls 5 to 15 years old--a segment of the population among whom suicide was a rare phenomenon in 1999--rates of suicide tripled between 1999 and 2014, with one suicide yearly for every 6,660 of these girls.
Hempstead's earlier published study of American suicide rates ended with 2010, and had documented a steep rise that appeared strongly related to financial distress and job problems. That that trend continued for four more years may reflect that "the benefits of the recovery have not been shared by all," said Hempstead. Recent reports that nonlethal forms self-harm--drug overdoses and alcohol-related diseases--have begun to erode Americans' life expectancy also underscore the lingering effects of economic hardship on many, she added.
The new report, issued Thursday by the CDC's Center for Health Statistics, also offers a grim look into the changing means by which American suicide victims took their lives. Among both men and women, the 1999-2014 period saw a shift away from the use of firearms, pills and poisons. In 2014, 1 in 4 suicides was by suffocation (hanging, strangulation or suffocation), up from 1 in 5 in 1999.
Firearms continued to be the preferred means of suicide by male victims, occurring in 55.4% of the cases in 2014. Among women, firearms followed close behind poisoning as a favored means of suicide, accounting for 31% of female suicides in 2014.
These facts underscore the importance of coaxing from those in crisis the pills, poison or guns they might use to carry out a suicide, said Catherine Barber, director of the Means Matter Campaign at Harvard's School of Public Health.
Research suggests that many who attempt suicide act on impulse--and when a gun is available, their attempts are vastly more likely to succeed. By contrast, 9 out of 10 people who attempt suicide and survive will not go on to die by their own hand, suggesting that removing the means to commit such an act is not a gesture doomed to fail.
"Often, the moment for a friend to intervene is related to a crisis that is going to resolve, like a divorce," said Barber. "A friend can offer optimism: 'We'll get through this,'" said Barber. "A friendly way of showing concern" would be to offer to hold a distressed person's firearms until the crisis has passed, she added.
"Emmanuel
Saez, a professor of economics at the University of California,
Berkeley, estimates that the top 1 percent of American households now
controls 42 percent of the nation’s wealth, up from less than 30 percent
two decades ago. The top 0.1 percent accounts for 22 percent, nearly
double the 1995 proportion."
DURING THE EIGHT YEARS OF OBAMA'S "HOPE AND NO CHANGE", TWO -THIRDS OF ALL JOBS WENT TO FOREIGN BORN, BOTH LEGALS AND ILLEGALS.
THE
MILLIONS OF AMERICAN THAT SUNK INTO POVERTY HAS SOARED, JUST AS THE
CRIMES AND PROFITS OF OBAMA - CLINTON CRONIES ON WALL STREET!
"To this, we say: we hear you.
The system is corrupt. The economy is rigged.
Big campaign contributors do pull the strings in Washington. Working people are right to be angry about trade policy and the betrayal of the middle class, working families, and the poor by an elite establishment that profits from the status quo."
The system is corrupt. The economy is rigged.
Whiteout Press
Independent news at its best. If it's blacked-out, covered-up or censored, you can find it here!
March 23, 2016
Statistic of the Week: The amount of assets/wealth the average adult has in each country:
Independent news at its best. If it's blacked-out, covered-up or censored, you can find it here!
March 23, 2016
Statistic of the Week: The amount of assets/wealth the average adult has in each country:
Belgium - $150,348
UK - $126,472
Norway - $119,634
Japan - $96,071
France - $86,156
Canada - $74,750
Netherlands - $74,659
USA - $49,787
-from Credit Suisse via Institute for Policy Studies
New study says entire regions of US will
remain in slump until the 2020s
A
new study by a University of California-Berkeley economist says that
at current sluggish levels of job growth, entire regions of the United
States, which were hit hardest by the Great Recession will not return
to “normal” employment levels until the 2020s. This amounts, to “more
than a ‘lost decade’ of depressed employment” for “half of the
country,” wrote economist Danny Yagan.
The new study is one of many showing that the fall of the official unemployment rate, touted by the Obama administration and the news media as proof of a robust economic recovery, if not a return to “full employment,” is largely based on the fact that millions of workers fell out of the labor force in the years preceding and following the 2008 financial crash.
The labor-force participation rate fell to a 38-year low of 62.4 percent last fall, and only climbed up to 62.9 percent in February. According to the Economic Policy Institute, February’s official jobless rate of 4.9 percent—the lowest since the pre-recession level of 4.7 percent in November 2007—would really be 6.3 percent if the country’s “missing workers” were included. These include 2.4 million workers who have given up actively looking for work.
Yagan based his findings on a detailed study of some 2 million, similarly paid workers in the retail industry in order to calculate employment patterns across different local areas and to account for occupations that might have been particularly hard hit in one region.
He found that the areas hardest hit by the recession, which began in December 2007 and officially ended in June 2009, continued to have high levels of joblessness in 2014. His map of these distressed areas includes all of Florida and parts of Arizona, Nevada, California, Colorado, New Mexico, the Dakotas, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Georgia, Connecticut, New Hampshire and other states.
While different areas of the country are often hit differently by an economic downturn, an article in the Wall Street Journal on Yagan’s study noted, these economically distressed areas generally return to normal levels of employment chiefly because workers move to find work in areas with a higher demand for labor. In the case of the “Great Recession,” however, the mass layoffs resulted in “muted migration,” according to other studies cited by the Journal, and workers simply fell out of the labor market.
“Unlike the aftermath of the 1980s and 1990s recessions,” Yagan wrote, “employment in hard-hit areas remains very depressed relative to the rest of the country.” Living in areas like Phoenix, Arizona, or Las Vegas, Nevada means confronting “enduring joblessness and exacerbated inequality,” Yagan wrote. “If the latest convergence speed continues, employment differences across the United States are estimated to return to normal in the 2020s—more than a decade after the Great Recession.”
The lack of decent job opportunities in large swathes of the country has created a reserve army of unemployed and underemployed workers who are competing for a shrinking number of jobs in areas that are more or less permanently distressed. Last month’s Labor Department employment report noted that the average annual unemployment rate in 36 states, plus Washington, D.C. was higher in 2015 than the average unemployment rate for those states in 2007.
The majority of unemployed people in the US do not receive unemployment insurance benefits, according to the National Employment Law Project, with just over one in four jobless workers (27 percent), a record low, receiving such benefits in 2015.
The details of these studies will come as no surprise for tens of millions of workers across the United States who face unprecedented levels of economic insecurity, ongoing mass layoffs, and more than a decade of stagnating or falling real wages. This has fueled the growth of enormous discontent and the initial stirrings of class struggle by American workers, which the trade unions and both big business parties have sought to channel in the direction of economic nationalism and hostility to workers in China, Mexico and other countries.
In fact, US workers are being subjected to the same attacks as workers around the world. The reports on the employment situation in the US coincide with a continual massacre of jobs in the world’s steel, oil and mining industries, with 1.2 million steel and coal mining jobs targeted for destruction in China alone.
Continual layoffs in the US have been driven by the plunging price of steel, petroleum, coal and other commodities, which has been generated in large measure by the fall in demand from China and other so-called emerging economies. Last week, St. Louis, Missouri-based Peabody Energy, the largest coal mining company in the world, announced it could soon file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, after its share values fell 46 percent over the last six months.
Peabody has already cut 20 percent of its global workforce since 2012, while spinning off large sections of its operations in order to cheat retirees out of their pensions. The company’s announcement follows bankruptcy filings by both Arch Coal and Alpha Natural Resources and a similar threat from coal mining giant Foresight Energy. In its press release, Peabody pointed to the collapse in the coal market, where the price per ton has fallen to $40 from $200 in 2008.
The steel industry continues to wipe out jobs, with 12,000 steelworkers already laid off or facing imminent job cuts. The largest US steelmaker, US Steel, has slashed thousands of jobs in Texas, Illinois, Ohio, Indiana and Pennsylvania. The aluminum giant Alcoa is just weeks away from closing its smelter in Warrick County, Indiana, wiping out another 600 jobs. Meanwhile, the United Steelworkers (USW) union is pushing for protectionist measures against China, Brazil, Russia and other countries, even as it pushes through concession-laden contracts at US Steel, Allegheny Technologies and now ArcelorMittal.
Early last year, the USW betrayed the strike by thousands of oil refinery workers, blocking any struggle against the brutal restructuring of the industry that is now underway. The plunging of oil prices triggered more than 258,000 layoffs in the global energy industry in 2015—with the number of active oil and gas rigs in the US falling 61 percent. Analysts anticipate a new round of job cuts and bankruptcies in early 2016.
Texas has lost 60,000 energy-related jobs alone, or one-fifth of the workforce in that sector in the state, with North Dakota and Pennsylvania also being hard hit. The current US unemployment rate for the oil, gas and mining sector is 8.5 percent, but could top 10 percent by February, double the national jobless rate.
Last month, the air conditioner maker Carrier announced it was eliminating 1,400 jobs at its Indianapolis plant and a nearby facility, and shipping production to Monterrey, Mexico where wages are approximately $6 an hour. A video shot by a worker, capturing the explosive anger at a meeting of plant workers when a manager makes the announcement, has been viewed millions of times.
Far from organizing any resistance to the closure of the factory and destruction of jobs, however, the USW is collaborating with United Technologies Carrier management to carry out an orderly shutdown and the retraining of displaced workers for lower-paying jobs.
The USW is hostile to any fight to unite American workers with their brothers and sisters in Mexico, who have been engaging in growing resistance to the exploitation by the transnational corporations. USW officials are telling workers to rely on the Democratic Party to implement protectionist trade measures to “save jobs” and “take our country back.” Local and regional union officials have had nothing but kind words about Donald Trump’s efforts to swindle workers with economic nationalist appeals.
The unions have long used economic nationalism to undermine the class-consciousness of workers and to promote the corporatist outlook of “labor-management partnership.” In the name of making the corporations “competitive,” the USW and other unions have suppressed every struggle against plant closings, job cuts and the destruction of wages and benefits.
This has coincided with the political subordination of workers to the Democratic Party, which under the Obama administration has spearheaded the attack on workers’ jobs and wages and the historic transfer of wealth from the bottom to the top.
USW Local 1999, which claims to represent Carrier workers, is urging them to support Democrat John Gregg for Indiana governor. A former land agent for Peabody Coal and lobbyist for Amax Coal Company, Gregg served as the honorary chair of Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign in Indiana, and was a proponent of austerity and corporate tax cuts while Speaker of the state Legislature.
IT WAS BILL CLINTON WHO UNLEASHED WALL
STREET'S BIGGEST CRIMINAL BANKSTERS ON US.
IT WAS BILL CLINTON WHO HANDED PARDONS TO
NUMEROUS CRIMINAL BILLIONAIRES.
IT IS BILL CLINTON THAT OPERATES THE PHONY
CLINTON FOUNDATION WHICH IS FUNDED BY
CRIMINAL
CRONY BILLIONAIRES, DICTATORS AND BANKSTERS
THAT OWN HILLARY!
Strike 2: Bill Clinton again hits Obama and his 'awful legacy':
For the second time this month,
Bill Clinton has slammed President Obama's economy, the latest a
junking of his whole seven-plus years in office as an awful legacy.
In comments video-captured and distributed by the Republican
National Committee, Hillary Clinton's hubby said, If you believe
we've finally come to the point where we can put the awful legacy
of the last eight years behind us, and the seven years before
that...then you should vote for her. A quick calculation of his years
would mean that the gravy years were when he was president.
The strangled American middle class
vs
Wall Street's Looters, the Mexican Fascist
Party of LA RAZA "The Race", and both
corporate bought and owned political parties!
more here:
http://mexicanoccupation.blogs...
AMERICA'S DRIFT TO REVOLUTION OR
CIVIL WAR
AND NO LEGAL NEED APPLY PHONY RECOVERY
A
recent survey of likely Republican primary voters showed that 86
percent believe that “people like me don’t have any say about what the
government does.” Another recent exit poll in my home state of Georgia
showed that six in ten Republicans felt “betrayed” by their political
party.
This sentiment is something I heard countless times during my campaign for the United States Senate just over a short year ago. It is what pulled me to get involved personally to try and make a difference. But this is not just happening in Georgia. People across America are angry, frustrated, and scared because they feel as though Washington is not listening to them.
When most Americans look at the federal government, all
they see is years of failed policies that have made life harder
for them and their families, and a political class that is well
connected and uninterested in giving them a say in how to
right the ship.
People are still hurting, and they are weary of Washington’s penchant for business as usual.
Georgians sent me—someone who had never run for elected office—to the United States Senate to try and do something about it and change the system. In state after state this year, voters have voiced support for presidential candidates who are not part of the political class.
This is a growing movement, and it is bigger than any one candidate or election victory. Unless the political establishment is willing to learn from the anger felt by millions of Americans who feel left behind, this will not end in November.
True to form, though, political elites prefer tearing down individuals to understanding what created this movement. This movement of Americans wants nothing to do with Washington, and neither endorsements nor criticisms are going to change that.
No matter who our Republican presidential nominee is at the end of this process, one thing is clear: We cannot allow Democrats to double down on the failed policies of the last seven years.
A better course of action would be a candid examination of what can be done to regain the trust of the American people. Let’s start with simply listening to them.
BLOG:
EVEN WITH POLLS DOCUMENTING THAT
ONLY 9% OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE
APPROVE OF CONGRESS, IT IS BUSINESS AS USUAL;
ENDLESS LOOTING FOR THEIR PAYMASTERS ON WALL
STREET AND SURRENDERING MORE OF OUR BORDERS,
JOBS AND WELFARE TO INVADING MEXICANS!
HILLARY CLINTON SAYS MILLIONS MORE VOTING
ILLEGAL SHOULD BE HANDED OBAMACARE!
CLINTON'S PLATFORM IS SIMPLE: BUILD THE MEX
WELFARE STATE ON AMERICA'S BACK TO BUY THEIR
ILLEGAL VOTES.
THEY ALREADY GET MILLIONS OF OUR JOBS AND
BILLIONS IN WELFARE!
THE AMERICAN THINKER
MORE HERE
More free stuff for people who violate our immigration laws! Hillary Clinton and her daughter have teed up a ball for the Republican nominee, whether Trump or Cruz, to hit 400 yards down the fairway. Just over a week ago, Hillary reversed her f...
OBAMA-CLINTONOMICS: FEEDING THEIR
BIG PHARMA CRONIES!
By Brad Dixon
According to a new report by
the pharmacy benefits manager Express Scripts, the average price of
brand-name drugs increased by 16.2 percent last year. Between 2011 and
2015, branded prescription drug prices have nearly doubled, rising 98.2
percent. Since 2008, the prices have increased by a whopping 164
percent.
Drug spending rose by 5.2 percent in 2015. This was about half the increase seen in 2014, the year of the largest hike since 2003.
The report is based upon prescription use data for members with drug coverage provided by Express Scripts plan sponsors. In assessing changes in plan costs, the report distinguishes between the relative contributions from changes in patient utilization (e.g. more patients being prescribed the drug) and changes in the unit price of the drug (e.g., price hikes).
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, most drug spending was on traditional drugs (small-molecule, solid drugs) to treat conditions such as heartburn, depression and diabetes. The recent trend has been a shift to specialty drugs. Still, within traditional therapy categories there were significant increases in spending on medications to treat diabetes, heartburn and ulcers, and skin conditions.
Diabetes medications remain the most expensive of the traditional drug categories. Drug spending in this category increased by 14 percent, with the hike being equally influenced by increased utilization of the drugs and rise in unit cost. Three diabetes treatments—Lantus, Januvia and Humalog—were among the top five drugs in terms of spending across all traditional therapy classes.
Although not discussed in the report, an investigation by Bloomberg News last year found evidence of “shadow pricing” by drug manufacturers, where companies raise their prices immediately after their competitors do so. The investigation found that the prices of diabetes drugs Lantus and Lemivir had increased in tandem 13 times since 2009, and evidence of similar shadow pricing for the drugs Humalog and Novolog.
Heartburn and ulcer drugs saw a 35.6 percent increase in spending, almost solely due to the rise in unit cost. Although 92.3 percent of the medications filled in this category were generic, the price unit trend was heavily influenced by the increase in prices of branded drugs such as Nexium, Dexilant and Prevacid.
Treatments for skin conditions also saw a significant increase of 27.8 percent in spending, again due almost completely to rises in the unit costs of the medications. The report notes that these increases occurred for both generic and branded therapies, largely due to industry consolidation through mergers and acquisitions leading to less competition in the market. While 86.3 percent of the drugs filled were generic, many of the generic versions saw sharp increases in unit cost, including the two most widely used corticosteroids, clobetasol (96.2 percent) and triamcinolone (28 percent).
While the overall spending increase for traditional therapy classes was nominal (0.6 percent), the primary factor for the increase in spending came from specialty medications. Specialty medications require special education and close patient monitoring, such as drugs to treat cancer, multiple sclerosis or cystic fibrosis. Spending on specialty drugs rose by 17.8 percent in 2015. The report found that 37.7 percent of drug spending was for specialty drugs in 2015, and the figure is expected to rise to 50 percent by 2018.
Spending in this category was topped by inflammatory conditions—such as rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel diseases and psoriasis—which rose by 25 percent, driven by a 10.3 percent increase in utilization and 14.7 percent rise in unit cost. The average cost per prescription in 2015 was $3,035.95. The medications Humira Pen and Enbrel, which captured more than 66 percent of the market share for this class, saw unit cost increases of more than 17 percent.
Spending on oncology therapies increased by 23.7 percent, due to both increased use (9.3 percent) and increased unit cost (14.4 percent). New cancer therapies average $8,000 per prescription and the average cancer regimen is around $150,000 per patient. Between 2005 and 2015, the anti-cancer drug Gleevec, manufactured exclusively by Novartis, has seen its price more than triple, with an annual cost of $92,000. In 2015, the year prior to the drug’s patent expiration, Novartis increased the unit cost of the drug by 19.3 percent. This is a common practice for companies facing patent expiration.
Drug spending on cystic fibrosis treatments rose by a significant 53.4 percent, largely based on increases in unit cost (40.9 percent vs. 13.3 percent from patient utilization). This rise was largely due to use of the new oral combination therapy, Orkambi, which became available in mid-2015. The drug costs more than $20,000 per month.
The report forecasts that between 2016 and 2018 spending will increase annually by 7-8 percent for traditional drugs and around 17 percent for specialty drugs.
The prices of generic drugs have on average decreased, although there are notable exceptions. Pharmaceutical companies like Horizon Pharma, Turing Pharmaceuticals, and Valeant Pharmaceuticals have purchased generic drugs and then significantly hiked their prices.
The report notes the emergence of “captive pharmacies” in 2015 as another factor responsible for higher drug spending. Captive pharmacies are owned or operated by pharmaceutical manufacturers and tend to promote their manufacturer’s drugs, rather than generic or other low-cost alternatives. The report gives as examples the arrangements between Valeant Pharmaceuticals and Philidor Rx Services, and between Horizon Pharma and Linden Care Pharmacy.
The Express Scripts data matches the findings released earlier this year by the Truveris OneRx National Drug Index, which found that branded drugs rose by 14.8 percent in 2015.
Despite the widespread media publicity of the notorious drug price hikes by companies like Turing and Valeant, pharmaceutical companies have continued to inflate prices in 2016, with Pfizer leading the way with an average price hike of 10.6 percent for 60 of its branded drugs.
Workers are rightly outraged at the skyrocketing price of drugs. A Kaiser Family Foundation poll conducted last year found that 74 percent of respondents felt that the drug companies put profits before people.
The political establishment, however, has sought both to exploit this anger for electoral support and to direct it into safe channels that do not disrupt the status quo.
A congressional hearing held in January placed a spotlight on the price-gouging practices of HYPERLINK Valeant Pharmaceuticals and Turing Pharmaceuticals, whose dubious activities were highlighted in a pair of congressional memos. The purpose of the hearing, however, was not probe the underlying causes of the sharp rise in drug prices. Instead, legislators sought to safeguard the profits of the pharmaceutical industry as a whole through a verbal lambasting of the industry’s most notorious culprits.
Drug prices have also been a theme in the presidential campaign.
The Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton, for example, released
a campaign advertisement earlier this month attacking the
“predatory pricing” of Valeant Pharmaceuticals. Like the
congressional hearing, this is all for show. Of all the presidential
candidates, Clinton is the top recipient of donations from the
pharmaceutical and health products industry, taking in $410,460
according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics.
Clinton’s rival, Bernie Sanders, who has stated that he will support Clinton if he loses the Democratic nomination, received $82,094 in donations from the industry. Sanders has proposed a series of minor reforms to address drug prices, such as the re-importation of drugs from Canada, allowing Medicare to negotiate prices with drug manufacturers, and decreasing the patent life of branded drugs.
None of the candidates, including the “democratic socialist” Sanders, challenge the private ownership of the pharmaceutical industry in which everything from research and development and clinical testing to drug pricing and promotion are subordinated to the profit interests of corporations.
.............. what would have happened to this once great nation if
instead of handing billions in welfare to criminal banksters, and
millions of our jobs to illegals.... we handed free education to
America's youth.
but then we wouldn't need to import boatloads of educated people
to take our tech jobs!!!
OBAMA-CLINTONOMICS: TRANSFERRING THE NATION'S
WEALTH TO THE 1%, JOBS AND WELFARE TO ILLEGALS
TO KEEP WAGES DEPRESSED AND BUILD THE DEM
PARTY BASE WITH MEX FLAG WAVERS
“My greatest worry is working all my life, constantly chasing debt
and never being to own a house or have children,” writes a
millennial named “Gemma” in a section of the series entitled
“#Itsnotjustyou: Millenials share their secret fears.” Continuing,
she states: “The cost of renting privately is rising, the cost of
travelling is rising, the cost of living is rising and yet the salaries
don’t reflect this rise. … I am worried that capitalism is pushing
this and creating a greater wealth inequality gap. It seems
unsustainable and to be driving people apart—a recent example is
the demonization of our own NHS service and the junior doctors.”
Study: Worsening conditions for young people throughout the developed world
By Nick Barrickman
Incomes for young people born
between 1980 and 1994 have hit unprecedented low levels in the
aftermath of the 2008 financial collapse, according to a recent
investigative series conducted by the UK’s Guardian publication titled “Millenials: The Trials of Generation Y.”
The study draws on income statistics from eight of the world’s 15 most
advanced economies, including the US, Canada, Great Britain, Australia,
France, Italy, Spain and Germany to paint a picture of dimming social
prospects for young people throughout the developed world.
The Guardian cites as contributing factors “a combination of
debt, joblessness, globalization, demographics and rising
house prices” which “have grave implications for everything
from social cohesion to family formation.” Whereas during the
1970s and 1980s people in their 20s averaged more than the
national income, the study found that young couples and
families in five of the eight countries listed made 20 percent
less than the rest of the population today.
“It is likely to be the first time in industrialized history, save for periods of war or natural disaster, that the incomes of young adults have fallen so far when compared with the rest of society,” the British newspaper states.
In the US and Italy, incomes were lower in actual figures than they were a generation ago, with Americans averaging a yearly salary of $27,757 in 2010 compared to $29,638 in 1979. The study notes that young US workers currently make less than those in retirement. In France, households headed by individuals under the age of 50 made less disposable income than recent retirees. In Italy, an 80-year-old pensioner possesses more income than someone under the age of 35.
In many cases, the 2008 financial collapse simply accelerated trends that were already underway. Housing prices in Great Britain and Australia are among the most expensive in the developed world. The average price for a home in Sydney, Australia, is $1 million in Australian dollars, more than 12 times the median household income in the city. The average home loan for first-time buyers in New South Wales is A$424,000. This figure has increased by 43 percent in the past four years alone.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, housing prices have increased more sharply and for a longer period in the past 20 years than at any time since 1880. The Guardian notes that housing costs in the UK and Australia have been increasing at a “neck and neck” pace ahead of the average household income. “We’re heading for a world where rates of home ownership among young people are below 50 percent for the first time,” states Alan Milburn of the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission, adding that the UK is heading toward becoming “a society that is permanently divided.” Income for those in their late 20s in the UK remain below levels seen in 2004-2005.
A recent survey by British polling firm Ipsos Mori found that 54 percent of those questioned thought the next generation was or would be worse off than the previous. “It’s the highest we’ve measured—it’s completely flipped around from April 2003,” stated Bobby Duffy, managing director of Ipsos Mori’s Social Research Institute of the findings.
In addition, more than a quarter of individuals in this age group live with their parents. An average woman in this age group today waits 7.1 years longer to become married than in 1981; and the average age of childbirth for young families is nearly four years later than those in 1974.
“My greatest worry is working all my life, constantly chasing
debt and never being to own a house or have children,”
writes a millennial named “Gemma” in a section of the series
entitled “#Itsnotjustyou: Millenials share their secret fears.”
Continuing, she states: “The cost of renting privately is rising,
the cost of travelling is rising, the cost of living is rising and
yet the salaries don’t reflect this rise. … I am worried that
capitalism is pushing this and creating a greater wealth
inequality gap. It seems unsustainable and to be driving
people apart—a recent example is the demonization of our
own NHS service and the junior doctors.” Many others share similar nightmares.
The study comes amid other findings revealing similar declines in living standards for youth in the developed world. A 2013 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report found nearly 30 million youth in the developed capitalist countries without a job or an education, the basic requirements for functioning in society.
The circumstances faced by young people throughout the world speak to a systemic breakdown of the social order in both the so-called developing and advanced countries, which has been compounded by war and militarism, consecutive attacks on living standards and cuts to social programs, which invariably hit the youngest and most vulnerable the hardest. Though not covered by the study, European nations such as Greece have been reduced to conditions unseen in the developed world, with youth unemployment at over 60 percent due to attacks on living standards demanded by the European Union and enforced by consecutive governments, both right and “left,” under Syriza.
The authors of the Guardian investigation, in an effort to divert rising anger away from the social system responsible for the poverty, destruction of living standards and attendant social misery, single out the relatively-better off living conditions of retirees in order to make a case for attacking pensions and other benefits accruing to the older generation. The publication quotes a recently published interview with Mario Draghi, head of the European Central Bank (ECB), who states “in many countries the labor market is set up to protect older ‘insiders’—people with permanent, high-paid contracts and shielded by strong labor laws. … The side-effect is that young people are stuck with lower-paid, temporary contracts and get fired first in crisis times.”
Rather than receiving expanded employment, pay and
access to better living conditions, it is proposed that the
young and the old fight over the rapidly diminishing
resources made available by bourgeois public officials and
the wealthy. While Draghi advocates attacking the pay and benefits of older workers, the ECB head has funneled billions into the hands of European banking institutions; recently upping the monthly total of cash infusions to €80 billion from €60 billion previously and adding to the wealth of the financial elite.
The fate of retirement benefits and wages under the profit-system is pointed to when the newspaper notes “pensioners’ incomes are likely to rise for at least the next decade, after which future generations will be unlikely to benefit [due to] a drop in home ownership, weaker private sector pension schemes and the expectation that state pensions will be less generous in the future.”
OBAMA-CLINTONOMICS: SERVE THE
RICH, WALL STREET CRONIES AND LA
RAZA, THE MEX FASCIST PARTY of
AMERICA....
Then hand what is left of the American middle
class the tax bills for bailouts and Mexico's
crime wave in our open borders and LA
RAZA "The Race" welfare state on our backs!
"The Clinton family charities have outsourced many U.S. white-collar jobs to foreign college graduates instead of hiring American college graduates."
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/03/oops_clinton_foundation_outsourced_tech_jobs_to_h1b_visa_holders.html#ixzz42cTZSzX3
Follow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on Faceboo
By Barry Grey
President Barack Obama seized on
the February employment report, released Friday morning by the Labor
Department, to tout the supposed “success” of his economic policies and
paint a picture of a thriving US economy. The report, which showed a
larger-than-predicted growth in private nonfarm payrolls of 242,000
jobs, confirmed that the US economy was “the envy of the world,” Obama
told reporters at a White House appearance.
“The fact of the matter is that the plans that we have put in place to grow the economy have worked,” he boasted.” He derided “an alternative reality out there from some of the political folks that America is down in the dumps.” He countered, “America is pretty darn great right now.”
He did not attempt to explain why the “alternative reality,” which his labor secretary, Thomas Perez, attributed to “fear-mongers and fact-deniers,” is believed by tens of millions of Americans, whose anger over economic injustice is dramatically reflected in the current election campaign.
One does not have to look too closely at the Labor Department’s report, however, to get an idea of what is fueling the social indignation of working people in the eighth and final year of the Obama administration. Behind the top-line number for new jobs and the quasi-fictional official unemployment rate of only 4.9 percent, ongoing trends with disastrous consequences for the working class are evident. They account for two other important indices in the report: a decline in average earnings from the previous month of 3 cents, or 0.1 percent, to $25.35, bringing the increase for the year down to just 2.2 percent, and a fall in the average private-sector workweek of 0.2 hours to 34.4 hours, a two-year low.
These two figures arise from the fact that the vast bulk of new jobs created in February were low-wage and a huge percentage were part-time. The low-paying service sector—retail, bars and restaurants, health care—accounted for 245,000 jobs. The reality of recession in basic production was reflected in a 16,000 decline in manufacturing and the loss of another 19,000 mining jobs, bringing to 171,000 the total decline in mining since September 2014. The only better-paying industrial sector that saw an increase was construction, which recorded a gain of 19,000.
Another figure highlights the hollow and socially regressive character of Obama’s so-called “recovery.” The financial cable network CNBC pointed out that according to the Labor Department’s household survey, which is the basis for the unemployment rate figure (the figure on payroll growth is derived from a separate survey of business establishments), full-time jobs increased in February by only 65,000, while part-time positions increased by 489,000. This means that a mere 11.7 percent of new jobs in February were full-time!
These statistics point to the fact that the American ruling class, through its instrument, the Obama administration, has utilized the financial crash of 2008, for which it was responsible, to fundamentally reorganize the US economy, transforming it into a low-wage system. The millions of decent-paying jobs that were destroyed have been largely replaced by poverty-wage, part-time and temporary jobs.
The median household income has fallen sharply. Pensions and health benefits have been gutted, schools closed by the thousands, teachers and other public workers laid off by the millions. At the other end, the Federal Reserve and the US Treasury have pumped trillions of dollars into the financial markets, driving up the stock market and bringing the concentration of wealth at the very top to unprecedented levels. This is what Obama lauds as “success.”
Meanwhile, millions of Americans remain mired in long-term unemployment. The number of long-term unemployed, defined as without work for 27 weeks or more, was essentially unchanged at 2.2 million in February. This number has not shifted significantly since last June. The long-term jobless accounted last month for 27.7 percent of the unemployed, a far higher percentage than in any previous period categorized as an economic recovery.
A broader measure of unemployment that includes people working part-time but wanting full-time work and those too discouraged to seek employment registered 9.7 percent last month, nearly double the official jobless rate. There are, in addition, millions of people who have dropped out of the labor market and are not even counted in government employment reports.
While the employment-to-population ratio edged up to 59.8 percent and the labor force participation rate rose slightly to 62.9 percent, both measures remain extraordinarily low by historical standards.
The impact of soaring social inequality and falling living standards for broad sections of the population is reflected in a growing crisis in the retail sector. This week, sporting goods chain The Sports Authority filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and announced it was closing at least 140 of its 463 stores and laying off 3,400 of its 13,000 employees. This follows recent announcements by Walmart, Sears/Kmart and Macy’s of hundreds of store closures and thousands of layoffs.
Hillary Clinton repeatedly claims that she is the
champion of the little guy. It has always been a
risible claim, but if any of her supporters
(including at the Post) are actually paying
attention to the scoundrel, this latest gambit ought
to disabuse them of the notion.
New study says entire regions of US will
remain in slump until the 2020s
By Jerry White
21 March 2016
A
new study by a University of California-Berkeley economist says that
at current sluggish levels of job growth, entire regions of the United
States, which were hit hardest by the Great Recession will not return
to “normal” employment levels until the 2020s. This amounts, to “more
than a ‘lost decade’ of depressed employment” for “half of the
country,” wrote economist Danny Yagan.The new study is one of many showing that the fall of the official unemployment rate, touted by the Obama administration and the news media as proof of a robust economic recovery, if not a return to “full employment,” is largely based on the fact that millions of workers fell out of the labor force in the years preceding and following the 2008 financial crash.
The labor-force participation rate fell to a 38-year low of 62.4 percent last fall, and only climbed up to 62.9 percent in February. According to the Economic Policy Institute, February’s official jobless rate of 4.9 percent—the lowest since the pre-recession level of 4.7 percent in November 2007—would really be 6.3 percent if the country’s “missing workers” were included. These include 2.4 million workers who have given up actively looking for work.
Yagan based his findings on a detailed study of some 2 million, similarly paid workers in the retail industry in order to calculate employment patterns across different local areas and to account for occupations that might have been particularly hard hit in one region.
He found that the areas hardest hit by the recession, which began in December 2007 and officially ended in June 2009, continued to have high levels of joblessness in 2014. His map of these distressed areas includes all of Florida and parts of Arizona, Nevada, California, Colorado, New Mexico, the Dakotas, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Georgia, Connecticut, New Hampshire and other states.
While different areas of the country are often hit differently by an economic downturn, an article in the Wall Street Journal on Yagan’s study noted, these economically distressed areas generally return to normal levels of employment chiefly because workers move to find work in areas with a higher demand for labor. In the case of the “Great Recession,” however, the mass layoffs resulted in “muted migration,” according to other studies cited by the Journal, and workers simply fell out of the labor market.
“Unlike the aftermath of the 1980s and 1990s recessions,” Yagan wrote, “employment in hard-hit areas remains very depressed relative to the rest of the country.” Living in areas like Phoenix, Arizona, or Las Vegas, Nevada means confronting “enduring joblessness and exacerbated inequality,” Yagan wrote. “If the latest convergence speed continues, employment differences across the United States are estimated to return to normal in the 2020s—more than a decade after the Great Recession.”
The lack of decent job opportunities in large swathes of the country has created a reserve army of unemployed and underemployed workers who are competing for a shrinking number of jobs in areas that are more or less permanently distressed. Last month’s Labor Department employment report noted that the average annual unemployment rate in 36 states, plus Washington, D.C. was higher in 2015 than the average unemployment rate for those states in 2007.
The majority of unemployed people in the US do not receive unemployment insurance benefits, according to the National Employment Law Project, with just over one in four jobless workers (27 percent), a record low, receiving such benefits in 2015.
The details of these studies will come as no surprise for tens of millions of workers across the United States who face unprecedented levels of economic insecurity, ongoing mass layoffs, and more than a decade of stagnating or falling real wages. This has fueled the growth of enormous discontent and the initial stirrings of class struggle by American workers, which the trade unions and both big business parties have sought to channel in the direction of economic nationalism and hostility to workers in China, Mexico and other countries.
In fact, US workers are being subjected to the same attacks as workers around the world. The reports on the employment situation in the US coincide with a continual massacre of jobs in the world’s steel, oil and mining industries, with 1.2 million steel and coal mining jobs targeted for destruction in China alone.
Continual layoffs in the US have been driven by the plunging price of steel, petroleum, coal and other commodities, which has been generated in large measure by the fall in demand from China and other so-called emerging economies. Last week, St. Louis, Missouri-based Peabody Energy, the largest coal mining company in the world, announced it could soon file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, after its share values fell 46 percent over the last six months.
Peabody has already cut 20 percent of its global workforce since 2012, while spinning off large sections of its operations in order to cheat retirees out of their pensions. The company’s announcement follows bankruptcy filings by both Arch Coal and Alpha Natural Resources and a similar threat from coal mining giant Foresight Energy. In its press release, Peabody pointed to the collapse in the coal market, where the price per ton has fallen to $40 from $200 in 2008.
The steel industry continues to wipe out jobs, with 12,000 steelworkers already laid off or facing imminent job cuts. The largest US steelmaker, US Steel, has slashed thousands of jobs in Texas, Illinois, Ohio, Indiana and Pennsylvania. The aluminum giant Alcoa is just weeks away from closing its smelter in Warrick County, Indiana, wiping out another 600 jobs. Meanwhile, the United Steelworkers (USW) union is pushing for protectionist measures against China, Brazil, Russia and other countries, even as it pushes through concession-laden contracts at US Steel, Allegheny Technologies and now ArcelorMittal.
Early last year, the USW betrayed the strike by thousands of oil refinery workers, blocking any struggle against the brutal restructuring of the industry that is now underway. The plunging of oil prices triggered more than 258,000 layoffs in the global energy industry in 2015—with the number of active oil and gas rigs in the US falling 61 percent. Analysts anticipate a new round of job cuts and bankruptcies in early 2016.
Texas has lost 60,000 energy-related jobs alone, or one-fifth of the workforce in that sector in the state, with North Dakota and Pennsylvania also being hard hit. The current US unemployment rate for the oil, gas and mining sector is 8.5 percent, but could top 10 percent by February, double the national jobless rate.
Last month, the air conditioner maker Carrier announced it was eliminating 1,400 jobs at its Indianapolis plant and a nearby facility, and shipping production to Monterrey, Mexico where wages are approximately $6 an hour. A video shot by a worker, capturing the explosive anger at a meeting of plant workers when a manager makes the announcement, has been viewed millions of times.
Far from organizing any resistance to the closure of the factory and destruction of jobs, however, the USW is collaborating with United Technologies Carrier management to carry out an orderly shutdown and the retraining of displaced workers for lower-paying jobs.
The USW is hostile to any fight to unite American workers with their brothers and sisters in Mexico, who have been engaging in growing resistance to the exploitation by the transnational corporations. USW officials are telling workers to rely on the Democratic Party to implement protectionist trade measures to “save jobs” and “take our country back.” Local and regional union officials have had nothing but kind words about Donald Trump’s efforts to swindle workers with economic nationalist appeals.
The unions have long used economic nationalism to undermine the class-consciousness of workers and to promote the corporatist outlook of “labor-management partnership.” In the name of making the corporations “competitive,” the USW and other unions have suppressed every struggle against plant closings, job cuts and the destruction of wages and benefits.
This has coincided with the political subordination of workers to the Democratic Party, which under the Obama administration has spearheaded the attack on workers’ jobs and wages and the historic transfer of wealth from the bottom to the top.
USW Local 1999, which claims to represent Carrier workers, is urging them to support Democrat John Gregg for Indiana governor. A former land agent for Peabody Coal and lobbyist for Amax Coal Company, Gregg served as the honorary chair of Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign in Indiana, and was a proponent of austerity and corporate tax cuts while Speaker of the state Legislature.
IT WAS BILL CLINTON WHO UNLEASHED WALL
STREET'S BIGGEST CRIMINAL BANKSTERS ON US.
IT WAS BILL CLINTON WHO HANDED PARDONS TO
NUMEROUS CRIMINAL BILLIONAIRES.
IT IS BILL CLINTON THAT OPERATES THE PHONY
CLINTON FOUNDATION WHICH IS FUNDED BY
CRIMINAL
CRONY BILLIONAIRES, DICTATORS AND BANKSTERS
THAT OWN HILLARY!
Strike 2: Bill Clinton again hits Obama and his 'awful legacy':
For the second time this month,
Bill Clinton has slammed President Obama's economy, the latest a
junking of his whole seven-plus years in office as an awful legacy.
In comments video-captured and distributed by the Republican
National Committee, Hillary Clinton's hubby said, If you believe
we've finally come to the point where we can put the awful legacy
of the last eight years behind us, and the seven years before
that...then you should vote for her. A quick calculation of his years
would mean that the gravy years were when he was president.
AMERICA'S DRIFT TO CIVIL WAR or
REVOLUTION
REVOLUTION
The strangled American middle class
vs
Wall Street's Looters, the Mexican Fascist
Party of LA RAZA "The Race", and both
corporate bought and owned political parties!
more here:
http://mexicanoccupation.blogs...
AMERICA'S DRIFT TO REVOLUTION OR
CIVIL WAR
AND NO LEGAL NEED APPLY PHONY RECOVERY
THE DAILY SIGNAL
Why Washington’s Political Class Is Losing Control
Unless
the political establishment is willing to learn from the anger felt by
millions of Americans who feel left behind, this will not end in
November. (Photo: istockphoto)
The Washington political
establishment has hit the panic button. Not because they are afraid of
any one individual or candidate, but because they are afraid of losing
their own political power.
This town is filled with well intentioned people who believe they are doing the right thing, but far too many have lost their way after years in Washington. Politicians pay more attention to special interests groups and powerful lobbyists writing checks to their next campaigns than listening to the people back home who sent them here in the first place.
This dangerous power vacuum has fueled frustration and
created an entirely new breed of disenfranchised voters who
are fed up with the status quo. These are real people, their
anger is palpable, and it’s not going away anytime soon.
The Washington political establishment
has hit the panic button.
This town is filled with well intentioned people who believe they are doing the right thing, but far too many have lost their way after years in Washington. Politicians pay more attention to special interests groups and powerful lobbyists writing checks to their next campaigns than listening to the people back home who sent them here in the first place.
This dangerous power vacuum has fueled frustration and
created an entirely new breed of disenfranchised voters who
are fed up with the status quo. These are real people, their
anger is palpable, and it’s not going away anytime soon.
The
Daily Signal is the multimedia news organization of The Heritage
Foundation. We’ll respect your inbox and keep you informed.
This sentiment is something I heard countless times during my campaign for the United States Senate just over a short year ago. It is what pulled me to get involved personally to try and make a difference. But this is not just happening in Georgia. People across America are angry, frustrated, and scared because they feel as though Washington is not listening to them.
A growing number of Americans are more motivated by this feeling of frustration than any individual political ideology.A growing number of Americans are more motivated by this feeling of frustration than any individual political ideology. The rise of career politicians has completely shifted the political paradigm from just liberal versus conservative. There is now a disconnect between the Washington political class and everybody else—the insiders versus the outsiders.
When most Americans look at the federal government, all
they see is years of failed policies that have made life harder
for them and their families, and a political class that is well
connected and uninterested in giving them a say in how to
right the ship.
People are still hurting, and they are weary of Washington’s penchant for business as usual.
Georgians sent me—someone who had never run for elected office—to the United States Senate to try and do something about it and change the system. In state after state this year, voters have voiced support for presidential candidates who are not part of the political class.
This is a growing movement, and it is bigger than any one candidate or election victory. Unless the political establishment is willing to learn from the anger felt by millions of Americans who feel left behind, this will not end in November.
True to form, though, political elites prefer tearing down individuals to understanding what created this movement. This movement of Americans wants nothing to do with Washington, and neither endorsements nor criticisms are going to change that.
No matter who our Republican presidential nominee is at the end of this process, one thing is clear: We cannot allow Democrats to double down on the failed policies of the last seven years.
A better course of action would be a candid examination of what can be done to regain the trust of the American people. Let’s start with simply listening to them.
"Let’s start with simply listening to them"
EVEN WITH POLLS DOCUMENTING THAT
ONLY 9% OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE
APPROVE OF CONGRESS, IT IS BUSINESS AS USUAL;
ENDLESS LOOTING FOR THEIR PAYMASTERS ON WALL
STREET AND SURRENDERING MORE OF OUR BORDERS,
JOBS AND WELFARE TO INVADING MEXICANS!
HILLARY CLINTON SAYS MILLIONS MORE VOTING
ILLEGAL SHOULD BE HANDED OBAMACARE!
CLINTON'S PLATFORM IS SIMPLE: BUILD THE MEX
WELFARE STATE ON AMERICA'S BACK TO BUY THEIR
ILLEGAL VOTES.
THEY ALREADY GET MILLIONS OF OUR JOBS AND
BILLIONS IN WELFARE!
THE AMERICAN THINKER
MORE HERE
More free stuff for people who violate our immigration laws! Hillary Clinton and her daughter have teed up a ball for the Republican nominee, whether Trump or Cruz, to hit 400 yards down the fairway. Just over a week ago, Hillary reversed her f...
NO ONE SERVES HIS PAYMASTERS ON WALL STREET MORE THAN
BARACK OBAMA!
HE SMELLS THOSE SPEECH FEE BRIBES ALREADY!
AND HILLARY IS OBAMA'S CLONE!
Drug prices have also been a theme in the presidential campaign. The
Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton, for example, released a campaign
advertisement earlier this month attacking the “predatory pricing” of
Valeant Pharmaceuticals. Like the congressional hearing, this is all for
show. Of all the presidential candidates, Clinton is the top recipient of
donations from the pharmaceutical and health products industry,
taking in $410,460 according to data from the Center for Responsive
Politics.
OBAMA-CLINTONOMICS: FEEDING THEIR
BIG PHARMA CRONIES!
US drug prices doubled since 2011
By Brad Dixon
18 March 2016
According to a new report by
the pharmacy benefits manager Express Scripts, the average price of
brand-name drugs increased by 16.2 percent last year. Between 2011 and
2015, branded prescription drug prices have nearly doubled, rising 98.2
percent. Since 2008, the prices have increased by a whopping 164
percent.Drug spending rose by 5.2 percent in 2015. This was about half the increase seen in 2014, the year of the largest hike since 2003.
The report is based upon prescription use data for members with drug coverage provided by Express Scripts plan sponsors. In assessing changes in plan costs, the report distinguishes between the relative contributions from changes in patient utilization (e.g. more patients being prescribed the drug) and changes in the unit price of the drug (e.g., price hikes).
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, most drug spending was on traditional drugs (small-molecule, solid drugs) to treat conditions such as heartburn, depression and diabetes. The recent trend has been a shift to specialty drugs. Still, within traditional therapy categories there were significant increases in spending on medications to treat diabetes, heartburn and ulcers, and skin conditions.
Diabetes medications remain the most expensive of the traditional drug categories. Drug spending in this category increased by 14 percent, with the hike being equally influenced by increased utilization of the drugs and rise in unit cost. Three diabetes treatments—Lantus, Januvia and Humalog—were among the top five drugs in terms of spending across all traditional therapy classes.
Although not discussed in the report, an investigation by Bloomberg News last year found evidence of “shadow pricing” by drug manufacturers, where companies raise their prices immediately after their competitors do so. The investigation found that the prices of diabetes drugs Lantus and Lemivir had increased in tandem 13 times since 2009, and evidence of similar shadow pricing for the drugs Humalog and Novolog.
Heartburn and ulcer drugs saw a 35.6 percent increase in spending, almost solely due to the rise in unit cost. Although 92.3 percent of the medications filled in this category were generic, the price unit trend was heavily influenced by the increase in prices of branded drugs such as Nexium, Dexilant and Prevacid.
Treatments for skin conditions also saw a significant increase of 27.8 percent in spending, again due almost completely to rises in the unit costs of the medications. The report notes that these increases occurred for both generic and branded therapies, largely due to industry consolidation through mergers and acquisitions leading to less competition in the market. While 86.3 percent of the drugs filled were generic, many of the generic versions saw sharp increases in unit cost, including the two most widely used corticosteroids, clobetasol (96.2 percent) and triamcinolone (28 percent).
While the overall spending increase for traditional therapy classes was nominal (0.6 percent), the primary factor for the increase in spending came from specialty medications. Specialty medications require special education and close patient monitoring, such as drugs to treat cancer, multiple sclerosis or cystic fibrosis. Spending on specialty drugs rose by 17.8 percent in 2015. The report found that 37.7 percent of drug spending was for specialty drugs in 2015, and the figure is expected to rise to 50 percent by 2018.
Spending in this category was topped by inflammatory conditions—such as rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel diseases and psoriasis—which rose by 25 percent, driven by a 10.3 percent increase in utilization and 14.7 percent rise in unit cost. The average cost per prescription in 2015 was $3,035.95. The medications Humira Pen and Enbrel, which captured more than 66 percent of the market share for this class, saw unit cost increases of more than 17 percent.
Spending on oncology therapies increased by 23.7 percent, due to both increased use (9.3 percent) and increased unit cost (14.4 percent). New cancer therapies average $8,000 per prescription and the average cancer regimen is around $150,000 per patient. Between 2005 and 2015, the anti-cancer drug Gleevec, manufactured exclusively by Novartis, has seen its price more than triple, with an annual cost of $92,000. In 2015, the year prior to the drug’s patent expiration, Novartis increased the unit cost of the drug by 19.3 percent. This is a common practice for companies facing patent expiration.
Drug spending on cystic fibrosis treatments rose by a significant 53.4 percent, largely based on increases in unit cost (40.9 percent vs. 13.3 percent from patient utilization). This rise was largely due to use of the new oral combination therapy, Orkambi, which became available in mid-2015. The drug costs more than $20,000 per month.
The report forecasts that between 2016 and 2018 spending will increase annually by 7-8 percent for traditional drugs and around 17 percent for specialty drugs.
The prices of generic drugs have on average decreased, although there are notable exceptions. Pharmaceutical companies like Horizon Pharma, Turing Pharmaceuticals, and Valeant Pharmaceuticals have purchased generic drugs and then significantly hiked their prices.
The report notes the emergence of “captive pharmacies” in 2015 as another factor responsible for higher drug spending. Captive pharmacies are owned or operated by pharmaceutical manufacturers and tend to promote their manufacturer’s drugs, rather than generic or other low-cost alternatives. The report gives as examples the arrangements between Valeant Pharmaceuticals and Philidor Rx Services, and between Horizon Pharma and Linden Care Pharmacy.
The Express Scripts data matches the findings released earlier this year by the Truveris OneRx National Drug Index, which found that branded drugs rose by 14.8 percent in 2015.
Despite the widespread media publicity of the notorious drug price hikes by companies like Turing and Valeant, pharmaceutical companies have continued to inflate prices in 2016, with Pfizer leading the way with an average price hike of 10.6 percent for 60 of its branded drugs.
Workers are rightly outraged at the skyrocketing price of drugs. A Kaiser Family Foundation poll conducted last year found that 74 percent of respondents felt that the drug companies put profits before people.
The political establishment, however, has sought both to exploit this anger for electoral support and to direct it into safe channels that do not disrupt the status quo.
A congressional hearing held in January placed a spotlight on the price-gouging practices of HYPERLINK Valeant Pharmaceuticals and Turing Pharmaceuticals, whose dubious activities were highlighted in a pair of congressional memos. The purpose of the hearing, however, was not probe the underlying causes of the sharp rise in drug prices. Instead, legislators sought to safeguard the profits of the pharmaceutical industry as a whole through a verbal lambasting of the industry’s most notorious culprits.
Drug prices have also been a theme in the presidential campaign.
The Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton, for example, released
a campaign advertisement earlier this month attacking the
“predatory pricing” of Valeant Pharmaceuticals. Like the
congressional hearing, this is all for show. Of all the presidential
candidates, Clinton is the top recipient of donations from the
pharmaceutical and health products industry, taking in $410,460
according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics.
Clinton’s rival, Bernie Sanders, who has stated that he will support Clinton if he loses the Democratic nomination, received $82,094 in donations from the industry. Sanders has proposed a series of minor reforms to address drug prices, such as the re-importation of drugs from Canada, allowing Medicare to negotiate prices with drug manufacturers, and decreasing the patent life of branded drugs.
None of the candidates, including the “democratic socialist” Sanders, challenge the private ownership of the pharmaceutical industry in which everything from research and development and clinical testing to drug pricing and promotion are subordinated to the profit interests of corporations.
.............. what would have happened to this once great nation if
instead of handing billions in welfare to criminal banksters, and
millions of our jobs to illegals.... we handed free education to
America's youth.
but then we wouldn't need to import boatloads of educated people
to take our tech jobs!!!
OBAMA-CLINTONOMICS: TRANSFERRING THE NATION'S
WEALTH TO THE 1%, JOBS AND WELFARE TO ILLEGALS
TO KEEP WAGES DEPRESSED AND BUILD THE DEM
PARTY BASE WITH MEX FLAG WAVERS
“My greatest worry is working all my life, constantly chasing debt
and never being to own a house or have children,” writes a
millennial named “Gemma” in a section of the series entitled
“#Itsnotjustyou: Millenials share their secret fears.” Continuing,
she states: “The cost of renting privately is rising, the cost of
travelling is rising, the cost of living is rising and yet the salaries
don’t reflect this rise. … I am worried that capitalism is pushing
this and creating a greater wealth inequality gap. It seems
unsustainable and to be driving people apart—a recent example is
the demonization of our own NHS service and the junior doctors.”
Study: Worsening conditions for young people throughout the developed world
Study: Worsening conditions for young
people throughout the developed world
By Nick Barrickman
15 March 2016
Incomes for young people born
between 1980 and 1994 have hit unprecedented low levels in the
aftermath of the 2008 financial collapse, according to a recent
investigative series conducted by the UK’s Guardian publication titled “Millenials: The Trials of Generation Y.”
The study draws on income statistics from eight of the world’s 15 most
advanced economies, including the US, Canada, Great Britain, Australia,
France, Italy, Spain and Germany to paint a picture of dimming social
prospects for young people throughout the developed world.The Guardian cites as contributing factors “a combination of
debt, joblessness, globalization, demographics and rising
house prices” which “have grave implications for everything
from social cohesion to family formation.” Whereas during the
1970s and 1980s people in their 20s averaged more than the
national income, the study found that young couples and
families in five of the eight countries listed made 20 percent
less than the rest of the population today.
“It is likely to be the first time in industrialized history, save for periods of war or natural disaster, that the incomes of young adults have fallen so far when compared with the rest of society,” the British newspaper states.
In the US and Italy, incomes were lower in actual figures than they were a generation ago, with Americans averaging a yearly salary of $27,757 in 2010 compared to $29,638 in 1979. The study notes that young US workers currently make less than those in retirement. In France, households headed by individuals under the age of 50 made less disposable income than recent retirees. In Italy, an 80-year-old pensioner possesses more income than someone under the age of 35.
In many cases, the 2008 financial collapse simply accelerated trends that were already underway. Housing prices in Great Britain and Australia are among the most expensive in the developed world. The average price for a home in Sydney, Australia, is $1 million in Australian dollars, more than 12 times the median household income in the city. The average home loan for first-time buyers in New South Wales is A$424,000. This figure has increased by 43 percent in the past four years alone.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, housing prices have increased more sharply and for a longer period in the past 20 years than at any time since 1880. The Guardian notes that housing costs in the UK and Australia have been increasing at a “neck and neck” pace ahead of the average household income. “We’re heading for a world where rates of home ownership among young people are below 50 percent for the first time,” states Alan Milburn of the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission, adding that the UK is heading toward becoming “a society that is permanently divided.” Income for those in their late 20s in the UK remain below levels seen in 2004-2005.
A recent survey by British polling firm Ipsos Mori found that 54 percent of those questioned thought the next generation was or would be worse off than the previous. “It’s the highest we’ve measured—it’s completely flipped around from April 2003,” stated Bobby Duffy, managing director of Ipsos Mori’s Social Research Institute of the findings.
In addition, more than a quarter of individuals in this age group live with their parents. An average woman in this age group today waits 7.1 years longer to become married than in 1981; and the average age of childbirth for young families is nearly four years later than those in 1974.
“My greatest worry is working all my life, constantly chasing
debt and never being to own a house or have children,”
writes a millennial named “Gemma” in a section of the series
entitled “#Itsnotjustyou: Millenials share their secret fears.”
Continuing, she states: “The cost of renting privately is rising,
the cost of travelling is rising, the cost of living is rising and
yet the salaries don’t reflect this rise. … I am worried that
capitalism is pushing this and creating a greater wealth
inequality gap. It seems unsustainable and to be driving
people apart—a recent example is the demonization of our
own NHS service and the junior doctors.” Many others share similar nightmares.
The study comes amid other findings revealing similar declines in living standards for youth in the developed world. A 2013 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report found nearly 30 million youth in the developed capitalist countries without a job or an education, the basic requirements for functioning in society.
The circumstances faced by young people throughout the world speak to a systemic breakdown of the social order in both the so-called developing and advanced countries, which has been compounded by war and militarism, consecutive attacks on living standards and cuts to social programs, which invariably hit the youngest and most vulnerable the hardest. Though not covered by the study, European nations such as Greece have been reduced to conditions unseen in the developed world, with youth unemployment at over 60 percent due to attacks on living standards demanded by the European Union and enforced by consecutive governments, both right and “left,” under Syriza.
The authors of the Guardian investigation, in an effort to divert rising anger away from the social system responsible for the poverty, destruction of living standards and attendant social misery, single out the relatively-better off living conditions of retirees in order to make a case for attacking pensions and other benefits accruing to the older generation. The publication quotes a recently published interview with Mario Draghi, head of the European Central Bank (ECB), who states “in many countries the labor market is set up to protect older ‘insiders’—people with permanent, high-paid contracts and shielded by strong labor laws. … The side-effect is that young people are stuck with lower-paid, temporary contracts and get fired first in crisis times.”
Rather than receiving expanded employment, pay and
access to better living conditions, it is proposed that the
young and the old fight over the rapidly diminishing
resources made available by bourgeois public officials and
the wealthy. While Draghi advocates attacking the pay and benefits of older workers, the ECB head has funneled billions into the hands of European banking institutions; recently upping the monthly total of cash infusions to €80 billion from €60 billion previously and adding to the wealth of the financial elite.
The fate of retirement benefits and wages under the profit-system is pointed to when the newspaper notes “pensioners’ incomes are likely to rise for at least the next decade, after which future generations will be unlikely to benefit [due to] a drop in home ownership, weaker private sector pension schemes and the expectation that state pensions will be less generous in the future.”
OBAMA-CLINTONOMICS: SERVE THE
RICH, WALL STREET CRONIES AND LA
RAZA, THE MEX FASCIST PARTY of
AMERICA....
Then hand what is left of the American middle
class the tax bills for bailouts and Mexico's
crime wave in our open borders and LA
RAZA "The Race" welfare state on our backs!
"The Clinton family charities have outsourced many U.S. white-collar jobs to foreign college graduates instead of hiring American college graduates."
March 11, 2016
Oops! Clinton Foundation outsourced tech jobs to
H-1B visa holders
The
Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, which does “wonderful
work” (if you ask Hillary), also has sought to hire a lot of foreign
tech workers brought to the country under the H-1B visa program to fill
jobs Americans supposedly can’t be found to perform. Breitbart reports:
they’re just returning it to some of the home countries.
The Clinton family charities have outsourced many U.S. white-collar jobs to foreign college graduates instead of hiring American college graduates.Hey, those private jets and 5-star luxury hotels favored by the traveling Clintons don’t come cheap, so they’ve got to pinch pennies wherever they can. And besides, a lot of their money comes from foreign sources, so
The outsourcing started in 2004 and it continues to this year. When asked if the foundation is still hiring foreign white-collar workers via the controversial H-1B visa program, Vena Cooper, one of the foundation’s personnel officers, responded “We do.”
The foundations declined to answer questions from Breitbart News, but available data shows they sought to hire up to 130 foreign graduates. That’s roughly half the number of 250 jobs outsourced by Disney last October, which has reignited political criticism of the middle-class outsourcing program.
The 130 foreign graduates sought by the Clinton’s foundations were and are not immigrants. Instead, they’re temporary “guest” workers who fill outsourced professional jobs for up to six years.
The Clintons’ foreign graduates have been hired via the H-1B visa program that also is used by Disney and U.S. corporations and universities to employ a population of roughly 650,000 young and cheap foreign professionals in business, design, healthcare, software, science, education, p.r. and media and pharmaceutical jobs. After their six years in the United States, most H-1Bs return
home with the work-experience and connections that help them compete against U.S. professionals in the global marketplace.
The young foreign H-1B professionals are also used to push down average salaries earned by experienced and older American professionals. In turn, those salary cuts boost profit margins and company values on Wall Street.
they’re just returning it to some of the home countries.
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/03/oops_clinton_foundation_outsourced_tech_jobs_to_h1b_visa_holders.html#ixzz42cTZSzX3
Follow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on Faceboo
US employment report: Payrolls rise,
wages fall
By Barry Grey
5 March 2016
President Barack Obama seized on
the February employment report, released Friday morning by the Labor
Department, to tout the supposed “success” of his economic policies and
paint a picture of a thriving US economy. The report, which showed a
larger-than-predicted growth in private nonfarm payrolls of 242,000
jobs, confirmed that the US economy was “the envy of the world,” Obama
told reporters at a White House appearance.“The fact of the matter is that the plans that we have put in place to grow the economy have worked,” he boasted.” He derided “an alternative reality out there from some of the political folks that America is down in the dumps.” He countered, “America is pretty darn great right now.”
He did not attempt to explain why the “alternative reality,” which his labor secretary, Thomas Perez, attributed to “fear-mongers and fact-deniers,” is believed by tens of millions of Americans, whose anger over economic injustice is dramatically reflected in the current election campaign.
One does not have to look too closely at the Labor Department’s report, however, to get an idea of what is fueling the social indignation of working people in the eighth and final year of the Obama administration. Behind the top-line number for new jobs and the quasi-fictional official unemployment rate of only 4.9 percent, ongoing trends with disastrous consequences for the working class are evident. They account for two other important indices in the report: a decline in average earnings from the previous month of 3 cents, or 0.1 percent, to $25.35, bringing the increase for the year down to just 2.2 percent, and a fall in the average private-sector workweek of 0.2 hours to 34.4 hours, a two-year low.
These two figures arise from the fact that the vast bulk of new jobs created in February were low-wage and a huge percentage were part-time. The low-paying service sector—retail, bars and restaurants, health care—accounted for 245,000 jobs. The reality of recession in basic production was reflected in a 16,000 decline in manufacturing and the loss of another 19,000 mining jobs, bringing to 171,000 the total decline in mining since September 2014. The only better-paying industrial sector that saw an increase was construction, which recorded a gain of 19,000.
Another figure highlights the hollow and socially regressive character of Obama’s so-called “recovery.” The financial cable network CNBC pointed out that according to the Labor Department’s household survey, which is the basis for the unemployment rate figure (the figure on payroll growth is derived from a separate survey of business establishments), full-time jobs increased in February by only 65,000, while part-time positions increased by 489,000. This means that a mere 11.7 percent of new jobs in February were full-time!
These statistics point to the fact that the American ruling class, through its instrument, the Obama administration, has utilized the financial crash of 2008, for which it was responsible, to fundamentally reorganize the US economy, transforming it into a low-wage system. The millions of decent-paying jobs that were destroyed have been largely replaced by poverty-wage, part-time and temporary jobs.
The median household income has fallen sharply. Pensions and health benefits have been gutted, schools closed by the thousands, teachers and other public workers laid off by the millions. At the other end, the Federal Reserve and the US Treasury have pumped trillions of dollars into the financial markets, driving up the stock market and bringing the concentration of wealth at the very top to unprecedented levels. This is what Obama lauds as “success.”
Meanwhile, millions of Americans remain mired in long-term unemployment. The number of long-term unemployed, defined as without work for 27 weeks or more, was essentially unchanged at 2.2 million in February. This number has not shifted significantly since last June. The long-term jobless accounted last month for 27.7 percent of the unemployed, a far higher percentage than in any previous period categorized as an economic recovery.
A broader measure of unemployment that includes people working part-time but wanting full-time work and those too discouraged to seek employment registered 9.7 percent last month, nearly double the official jobless rate. There are, in addition, millions of people who have dropped out of the labor market and are not even counted in government employment reports.
While the employment-to-population ratio edged up to 59.8 percent and the labor force participation rate rose slightly to 62.9 percent, both measures remain extraordinarily low by historical standards.
The impact of soaring social inequality and falling living standards for broad sections of the population is reflected in a growing crisis in the retail sector. This week, sporting goods chain The Sports Authority filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and announced it was closing at least 140 of its 463 stores and laying off 3,400 of its 13,000 employees. This follows recent announcements by Walmart, Sears/Kmart and Macy’s of hundreds of store closures and thousands of layoffs.
Hillary Clinton repeatedly claims that she is the
champion of the little guy. It has always been a
risible claim, but if any of her supporters
(including at the Post) are actually paying
attention to the scoundrel, this latest gambit ought
to disabuse them of the notion.
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