“Kansas City is getting more liberal now. The cancer is
spreading everywhere!” Yesterday, a Townhall columnist
wrote a steadied piece on the full-on Democratic takeover of
Virginia in the last decade, too. I visited there last year—it felt
like Los Angeles, only worse. Americans are finding that
there are fewer places where they can flee from state’s
oppressive governments.
"A defining expression of this crisis is the
dominance of financial speculation and
parasitism, to the point where a narrow
international financial aristocracy plunders
society’s resources in order to further enrich
itself."
BILLIONAIRES FOR wider OPEN BORDERS TO KEEP WAGES
DEPRESSED and AMERICA FLOODED WITH FOREIGNERS.
But
Benioff’s cheap-labor importation plan would also shrink the income and careers
sought by millions of American college graduates, many of whom will vote in
2020 for or against Trump.
*
The nation’s workforce now includes roughly 1.5
million foreign college-graduate contract-workers who are imported via the
H-1B, L-1, OPT, O-1, J-1, and other visa programs. These outsourcing workers
are not immigrants, but instead, they are contract workers hired for one to six
years, at lower wages, to take jobs that would otherwise go to American
graduates.
*
The Americans’ salary loss, however,
would be a gain for the CEOs who see their profits rise and their
stock options spike as middle-class salaries decline.
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2018/04/wall-street-plunders-ceo-pay-banksters.html
“But
a series of reports on CEO pay, bank profits and corporate cash released over
the past week reveal that corporate America and the financial oligarchy are
wallowing in record levels of wealth.”
AS WALL STREET PLUNDERS: A Nation of One Million Homeless and Overrun By Mexico’s Export of “cheap labor”!
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2018/04/wall-street-plunders-ceo-pay-banksters.html
“But
a series of reports on CEO pay, bank profits and corporate cash released over
the past week reveal that corporate America and the financial oligarchy are
wallowing in record levels of wealth.”
Another day, another horror in America: Five children killed in Youngstown, Ohio, house fire
11 December 2018
Daybreak Monday brought news of yet another horrific tragedy in the United States. Fire officials in Youngstown, Ohio, confirmed that five children had been killed, and their 26-year-old mother, America “Amy” Negron-Acevedo, severely injured after fire engulfed their home late Sunday night.
Negron-Acevedo has been transferred to the MetroHealth Burn Center in nearby Cleveland. She survived the fire by jumping out of a second-floor window. Residents on the block were alerted to the fire as Negron-Acevedo ran down the street, injured, screaming for help to save her children.
The five deceased children have been identified as Aleysha Rosario, 9; Charles Gunn, 3; Ly’Asia Gunn, 2; and Brianna and Arianna Negron, one-year-old twins. Two of the children were found dead by firefighters who rushed into the house at 434 Parkcliffe Avenue, while three died later at the hospital.
According to neighbors, the family had only been living in the house for less than half a year. Negron-Acevedo works for Century Container, a plastic container manufacturer half an hour’s drive outside Youngstown, where the average wage for a shift supervisor is less than $13 an hour. Even if she were making this amount, at full time it would have placed Negron-Acevedo and her children well below the poverty line, leaving her with the only option of renting substandard housing.
Two firefighters were injured in the rescue effort, one serious enough to be taken to the hospital for treatment. Youngstown City Fire Chief Barry Finley told reporters that the tragedy had also taken a heavy emotional toll. “It’s extremely hard. We have a relatively young department, and most the guys have children. So, it hits pretty hard, and the fact that it’s so close to Christmas hits even harder.”
While the immediate cause of Sunday’s fire remains under
investigation, temperatures in Youngstown fell into the low 20s
Fahrenheit over the weekend. During the winter
months, families often turn to unsafe space
heaters to avoid high heating bills or to keep
warm when utilities have been shut off over
unpaid bills, contributing to a higher number
of house fires.
The tragedy that struck Negron-Acevedo’s family is not an isolated event. More than 3,400 people were killed in structure fires across the US in 2017. The majority died in their homes. Earlier this year, a blaze that consumed a house in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood killed ten children between the ages of three months and 16 years old. In that case, there were no functional smoke alarms in the home to alert the sleeping children to the fire.
Whatever the specific causes and
circumstances, such tragedies arise out of
definite social, economic and political
processes.
Youngstown is one of many cities across the Midwest that has been devastated by four decades of deindustrialization and the destruction of tens of thousands of decent paying jobs in steel mills and machine shops. Since the day in September 1977, known as Black Monday, when the Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company announced its closure, the city’s population has been reduced by more than half.
Today, nearly 40 percent of Youngstown’s residents live below the poverty line. A 2014 report found that more than 63 percent of children in the city were growing up in poverty, placing the city just behind Flint, Michigan, with the worst child poverty rate in the country. The destruction of jobs and the explosion in poverty that followed the economic crisis a decade ago has fueled an opioid overdose crisis across the US, with the region around Youngstown a center of the crisis in Ohio. Last year, 245 people died of drug overdoses, an increase of 23 percent over the previous year.
With its property tax base wiped out by factory closures and ensuing depopulation, the city has struggled to cover the cost of basic social services, including the fire department. Earlier this year, the city removed one firetruck from service and demoted nine firefighters in order to cut their pay, as part of an effort to cover a projected $15 million budget shortfall for the city over the next five years. “We all have to tighten our belt to be more fiscally responsible with the city’s money,” Fire Chief Finely told media at the time.
That such sums could constitute a financial crisis is exposed as absurd by the fact that Ohio’s richest man, Les Wexner (net worth $6.1 billion), owns a $100 million yacht, enough to pay the salaries of more than 2,200 firefighters for an entire year. The vessel, which goes by the name Limitless, is one of the world’s largest private superyachts, specially built in 1997 by German ship maker Lürssen for Wexner, the chairman and CEO of L Brands corporation (Victoria’s Secret).
Indeed, limitless sums are made available for
the whims of the corporate and financial elite,
while basic social services are decimated—
with the inevitable consequences.
The destruction of Youngstown has been overseen by Democrats and Republicans at the state and local level, with the city being hollowed out over the last 40 years under the control of Democratic mayors. Nationally, under Obama and now Trump, there has been an intensification of the assault on the working class. Whatever their conflicts, both parties agree on the transfer of wealth from the working class to the rich, while hundreds of billions are allocated every year to finance the weapons of destruction and war.
The United Auto Workers, United Steelworkers and other unions have facilitated the destruction of jobs, working hand in hand with the Democrats. For decades, the increasingly wealthy executives that control these organizations have collaborated in the decimation of living standards for the workers they claim to represent.
The social crisis that has ravaged Youngstown and the surrounding Mahoning Valley is set to worsen as GM, the largest industrial employer in the area, is planning to shutter its Lordstown assembly plant just 17 miles west of Negron-Acevedo’s home.
GM’s plans to close Lordstown along with plants in Detroit, Michigan and Oshawa, Ontario, will be a death sentence for countless workers and their children, tearing apart families and social networks. For the company’s executives, board members and investors, the social inferno they are preparing will pad their bottom line, while funneling millions to wealthy investors.
This underscores the crucial importance of the meeting hosted by the World Socialist Web Site Autoworker Newsletter on Sunday, which adopted a resolution for the formation of rank-and-file factory, workplace and neighborhood committees, independent of the unions. The resolution stressed that the consequences of the job cuts would be felt far beyond the workers immediately impacted. The struggle of autoworkers to defend their jobs and wages must be connected to a broad struggle of the working class.
Such tragedies as that which befell the Negron-Acevedo family, and many more like it, are entirely preventable. Billions must be allocated to construct modern fire-resistant housing, including the use of smoke detectors and much more advanced technologies, along with an infusion of funding into fire departments. A safe and affordable house is a basic social right that must be guaranteed to all.
To secure these rights, the working class must be organized in a political struggle that takes direct aim at the wealth and prerogatives of the financial aristocracy. Capitalism, which ensures the inalienable right of the rich to profit, must be overthrown and replaced with socialism, the reorganization of society on the basis of equality and social need.
EUROPE IN REVOLT!
AMERICA’S PROTECTED CRIMINAL BILLIONAIRE CLASS HEADS FOR
THEIR BUNKERS UNDER WALL STREET.
AMERICA FACES REVOLUTION, CIVIL WAR II OR REVOLUTION AGAINST THE
RULE BY BILLIONAIRES AND WALL STREET
"Vast popular hardship and suffering, on the one hand, and
almost indescribable wealth and social indifference, on the other.
Two parties of the corporate oligarchy, dedicated to war and
political reaction. The impossible economic and political conditions
must produce sooner rather than later the greatest social upheavals
in American history."
*
"A series of recent polls in the US and Europe
have shown a sharp growth of popular disgust with capitalism and
support for socialism. In May of
2017, in a survey conducted by the Union
of European Broadcasters of people aged 18 to 35, more than half said
they would participate in a
“large-scale uprising.” Nine out of 10 agreed
with the statement, “Banks and money rule the world.”
*
"A
defining expression of this crisis is the dominance of financial
speculation and parasitism, to the point where a arrow international
financial aristocracy plunders society’s resources in
order to further enrich itself."
REVOLUTION STIRS IN AMERICA
“It will more likely come on the heels of
economic dislocation and dwindling wealth to redistribute.”
*
"Between 2002 and 2015
annual earnings for the bottom 90 percent of Americans rose
by only 4.5 percent, while earnings for the top 1 percent grew by
22.7 percent, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Under the Obama administration,
more than 90 percent of income gains since the so-called
“recovery” began have gone to the top one percent."
*
“Our entire crony capitalist
system, Democrat and Republican alike, has become a kleptocracy
approaching par with third-world hell-holes. This is the way a great
country is raided by its elite.” ---- Karen McQuillan THEAMERICAN
THINKER.com
"A defining expression of this crisis is
the dominance of financial speculation and parasitism, to the point
where a narrow international financial aristocracy plunders society’s
resources in order to further enrich itself."
THE BILLIONAIRES’S GLOBALIST DEMOCRAT PARTY FOR WIDER
OPEN BORDERS
the true cost of all that “cheap” labor is passed
along to the middle class.
"This doesn't include the costs
of illegal immigration to society, which provides health care, housing, education, child
care, and legal services to illegal aliens. Even though immigration
advocates claim that illegal aliens do indeed pay taxes, the dollar
amount pales
in comparison to
the cost of the many services they receive."
https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-globalist-democrat-party-for-wider_29.html
Meanwhile, despite the
highest taxes in the nation, California is $1.3 trillion in debt – unemployment
is at a staggering 11%. California's wacko giveaways to illegals
include in-state tuition, amounting to $25 million of financial
aid. Nearly a million illegals have California driver's
licenses. L.A. County has
144% more registered voters than there are residents of legal voting
age. Clearly, illegals are illegally
voting.
WALL STREET AND THE SUPER RICH PREPARE BUNKERS FOR THE
REVOLUTION
(SOCIALSIM, INEQUALITY)
BANKSTERS AND BILLIONAIRES
PREPARE FOR THE WORST.
REVOLUTION IS IN LOOMING AND
WILL MARCH RIGHT DOWN WALL STREET FIRST.
"A series of recent polls in the US and Europe have shown a sharp
growth of popular disgust with capitalism and support for socialism. In May of
2017, in a survey conducted by the Union of European Broadcasters of people
aged 18 to 35, more than half said they would participate in a “large-scale
uprising.” Nine out of 10 agreed with the statement, “Banks and money rule the
world.”
*
"The
ruling class was particularly terrified by the teachers’ walkouts earlier
this year because the biggest strikes were organized by rank-and-file
educators in a rebellion against the unions, reflecting the weakening grip
of the pro-corporate organizations that have suppressed the class struggle
for decades."
*
“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. This is just one of the findings of the 2013 Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances released Thursday, which documents a sharp decline in working class living standards and a further concentration of wealth in the hands of the rich and the super-rich.”
“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. This is just one of the findings of the 2013 Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances released Thursday, which documents a sharp decline in working class living standards and a further concentration of wealth in the hands of the rich and the super-rich.”
*
"The American
phenomenon of record stock values fueling an ever greater concentration of
wealth at the very top of society, while the economy is starved of
productive investment, the social infrastructure crumbles, and working
class living standards are driven down by entrenched
unemployment, wage-cutting and government austerity policies, is part of
a broader global process."
*
"A defining expression of this crisis is the dominance of financial speculation and parasitism, to the point where a narrow international financial aristocracy plunders society’s resources in order to further enrich itself."
"A defining expression of this crisis is the dominance of financial speculation and parasitism, to the point where a narrow international financial aristocracy plunders society’s resources in order to further enrich itself."
Americans,
Learn From The Yellow Jackets: Stop Running And Start Fighting Back
In
France, the Yellow Jackets (or “Gilets Jaunes” in French) have rushed into the
streets in massive numbers. They are not protesting cuts in the generous
entitlements. They are not throwing fits because they fear
losing one-month paid vacations. The fight is about the increased
fuel taxes—exorbitant taxes on top of the
already high cost of fuel.
But it’s
more. The Macron government,
an aloof, elitism regime, is pushing a globalist, pro-EU agenda, one
which is crippling the quality of life for working Frenchmen, especially in
rural areas and small towns. Mass
migration, bureaucratic wrangling, massive crime and unemployment with
minimal police presence are raving the country. Sadly, this is history
repeating itself as farce. Like now, Western and Northern
France rebelled during the French Revolution. The bloodthirsty
Jacobins, lead by cat-like Robespierre, seized power from the French
King, but their so-called reforms in the name of social
justice ended up hurting the very working people they claimed to care about.
The
unrest is also targeting the inflexible, unaccountable EU
bureaucracy. Belgian Yellow Jackets are protesting the main
offices in Maastricht and Brussels. Europeans have started to realize that the
federalization of the continent is not working out as they had hoped. A common
currency, a common market has turned into communistic micromanaging. The
economically stronger countries are expected to carry the costs of the
fiscally weaker nations. The central
planners want open borders, cheap labor, and the resolute silencing of any
disagreement to their plans. A federalized Europe is not working out.
A Frenchman cannot run to Portugal, Spain, or Italy to escape the moral and
fiscal ruin of his home country. French voters have no choice but to fight back
for their rights and dignity in their home countries.
France’s
Yellow Jacket revolt is spreading into the Netherlands as well. The Dutchmen
are just as animated, but less violent, expressing pent-up outrage over similar
issues: excessive taxes, open borders, but also a stifling culture of political
correctness. This subtle anti-free speech tyranny has inhibited a healthy
exploration of difficult issues, but has hindered public safety. Islamic
militants among the teeming masses of refugees are overwhelming Europe,
undermining the tenuous social fabric of the Western World and bringing rampant
acts of terrorism in their wake. Islamic preachers call publicly for full-on
conquest Europe, the imposition of Sharia law, and with it the casting out of
freedom, the democratic process, and civil rights for all. However, law-abiding citizens face criminal penalties for criticizing
Islam, Allah, or for calling out the violent tendencies advocated for in the
Koran. This injustice cannot stand any longer, so the people are taking to the
streets.
Even in
Canada, a small yet growing contingent of Yellow Jacket protests are gathering
in different urban centers, including Calgary, Alberta and
Ottawa, Ontario: the federal seat of the national government. They
are protesting Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s carbon tax scheme. They
are also rising up against Trudeau’s lax defense and border control policies.
Seven conservative provincial premiers are pushing back against the
federal government’s insistence on taking in large numbers of Middle Eastern
refugees, but refusing to pick up the costs for this program.
Throughout the
Western World, people are clamoring for the freedom to speak out
against Islam, against the aggressive secular agenda invading their
schools and the government. In general, they are
forcefully denouncing the rogue cult of
progressivism. As the taxes and dead bodies pile up, as the
degradation of the public square becomes more prominent,
the citizens are pushing back.
Contrast
these European uprisings with the United States. Instead of
fighting big statism, Americans are fleeing their home
state in droves. Californians are in mass exodus, including
members of my own family. If they don’t like the blue
state bureaucracy, American citizens enjoy the luxury of moving to
a red state. And yet, this intra-migration process is hitting a
brick wall. Some reliably red states have been
trending blue over the last ten years. After Election
2018, progressives are targeting more of them.
One
contact from New Mexico just witnessed this Democratic
resurgence. The lone Republican Congressman, Steve Pearce, lost
his bid for governor, and his seat flipped blue (likely due to
voter fraud, but no one’s fighting it). “I am planning on moving out
of here,” she told me. But I had to ask: “Where do you plan to
go?” Arizona suffered some Democratic wins. Wisconsin and Michigan will
have Democrats installed in statewide offices next
year. Republicans still control those state legislatures for now, but
for how much longer? Even ruby-red Kansas just
elected a Democratic Governor. Another friend (who had relocated
to the Sunflower State) expressed shock and disdain, even though he enjoys
the much lower cost of living. “Kansas City is getting more liberal now. The
cancer is spreading everywhere!” Yesterday, a Townhall columnist
wrote a steadied piece on the full-on
Democratic takeover of Virginia in the last
decade, too. I visited there last year—it felt like Los Angeles, only
worse. Americans are finding that there are fewer
places where they can flee from state’s oppressive governments.
Americans better learn
the lesson and follow the example of their Yellow Jacket peers: assert
your rights in your home states. Running to Texas is not
the final answer. Texas is combatting a blue
undercurrent already. The seduction of socialism, which gives way to the
specter of communism, has possessed the minds of college students there as well
as in California, Oregon, and Washington State. Don’t flee, fight back, Americans. It’s
time to Make America Great Again, not just find a redder state to retire
in.
The
Founding Fathers didn’t pull up stakes and flee west of the Appalachian
Mountains when the British Empire exacted higher taxes while denying the
American colonists’ equal representation in parliament. If American
citizens don’t like what they see happening at the local level or the state
level in their home states, they need to start fighting back, because there are
fewer places to run to.
America’s Thanksgivings
22 November 2018
In an effort to give a
livelier and more in-depth picture of modern life, American novelists such as
John Dos Passos—The 42nd Parallel (1930), 1919 (1932)
and The Big Money (1936)—introduced “newsreel” sections
including headlines, advertisements and popular songs. We hope the following
selections will provide some sense of American reality on Thanksgiving Day
2018.
* * * * *
— “There
aren’t many downsides to America’s humming economy. ” (Wall
Street Journal)
— “On his days
off from his $7.50-an-hour job as a cook at the Chicken Hut restaurant in
Riverdale, Ga. [Georgia] , Laugudria Screven Jr., 23,
travels more than 25 miles across Atlanta to sell plasma. By offering up his
arm to a technician’s needle twice a week at $50 a shot, he scrapes together
enough to pay his $360 rent.
“Yet donating plasma
takes a toll on Screven’s body, leaving him drowsy and weak. And even with the
extra income, he says he sometimes can’t afford to eat more than once a day.
Often he comes home to a refrigerator that contains little more than mustard,
ketchup and peanut butter.
“‘I sell my blood to
pay my bills,’ he said, rubbing his arm as he waited for a bus in East
Point, Ga. ‘It’s kind of messed up. If I were paid a fair wage, I
wouldn’t have to go through this.’” (Los Angeles Times)
— “Set on 40
acres in Newport, Rhode Island, Castle Hill Inn, a Relais & Châteaux
property, provides guests with a classic New England Thanksgiving. Chef Lou
Rossi—an alum of NYC’s three-Michelin-starred Per Se—showcases the local
harvest with appetizers like Native littleneck clams, Matunuck oysters and
chilled white shrimp, plus herb roasted Helger’s Farm turkey with sage gravy
and cranberry sauce, and a selection of pies, pastries and tarts. The hotel
also features a spa, the Retreat at Castle Hill by Farmaesthetics, and has a
selection of romantic and rustic rooms and cottages available by the beach,
overlooking the harbor, and on its namesake hill. [A room in the
Superior Beach House is $1,091.45 a night including
taxes and fees.] (Town & Country)
— “Hundreds of
people in need lined Bleecker Street in downtown Utica[New York] to
receive a free Thanksgiving day meal to make with their families. … This
year roughly 700 meals were donated, an increase of about 200 from last year.
In Utica 1 in 3 people are living in poverty, according to DataUSA.” (WKTV )
— “Despite a
relatively good economy, local food pantries are seeing a double-digit increase
in the number of hungry residents. Des Moines [Iowa] pantries normally expect
about a 3.5 percent increase each month, compared to the previous year. But for
the last six months, that increase has more than tripled in the metro area,
said Rev. Sarai Schnucker Rice, executive director of the Des Moines Area
Religious Council, which oversees the network of 14 local pantries.” (Des
Moines Register)
— “Though major
cities, such as Dayton [Ohio], are often thought of as having the most
households facing hardship, several of the Gem City’s suburbs actually rival
it. Thousands of families around the Miami Valley are not necessarily in
poverty but are still struggling to get by financially, according to the United
Way report.” (Dayton Daily News)
— “Three
dynastic wealth families—the Waltons, the Kochs, and the Mars—have seen their
wealth increase nearly 6,000 percent since 1982. Meanwhile,
median household wealth over the same period went down by 3 percent. …
“The median family in
the United States owns just over $80,000 in household wealth. The richest
person in the United States (and the world), Jeff Bezos, has accumulated a fortune
nearly 2 million times that amount. The Bezos fortune expanded by $78.5 billion
just in the last year to $160 billion. Even at the recently increased wage of
$15/hour, a full-time Amazon worker would need to toil for 2.5 million years to
generate this much money.” (Institute for Policy Studies)
— “Gone are
lucrative manufacturing positions [in Indianapolis, Indiana]that
could elevate a family into the middle class, even without higher education.
Those jobs were in city neighborhoods. They offered salaries high enough to pay
for homes, send kids to college, and build up savings accounts. And there were
tons of them. At their peaks, the General Motors stamping plant employed 5,600
people, Western Electric had 8,000 workers, and RCA had 8,200.
“But today, scattered
brownfields—some with crumbling buildings, some vacant lots—are the only
remnants of those once-bustling factories. …
“Stefanie Bell and
Steven Pedrazoli—and their 8-year-old son, Chance—are living that new reality.
Both parents have regularly worked, but the family is homeless. They’ve been
living since April at Dayspring Center at 1537 Central Ave.
“Bell, 37, a server,
has uncertain wages because she relies on tips and a $2.13 hourly wage that
barely covers taxes. During some shifts, the money at Primanti Bros. restaurant
downtown is good. During others, factoring in $3.50 for a round-trip IndyGo bus
fare, it’s barely worth showing up. The night before meeting with IBJ, Bell
made just $30 in tips, despite working 5 p.m. to close.” (Indianapolis
Business Journal)
— “There are a
lot of things in life you might expect to cost $150,000—just probably not a
Thanksgiving dinner. And yet, that’s exactly what Old Homestead, a New York
City steakhouse, is offering this year with what it bills as the most expensive
Thanksgiving dinner in history, topping the record set by the $76,000 dinner
the restaurant offered last year.
“This year’s dinner,
which at a total price of $150,000 is nearly three times more than the average
U.S. household income, comes complete with all of the world’s finest
ingredients, as well as keys to a 2018 Maserati Levante nestled inside a
$135-per-pound free-range, organic turkey sprinkled with gold
flakes.” (Yahoo Finance)
— “Near where he
slept on a Salinas [California] sidewalk Monday night, David Rodriguez, 39,
regularly gets meals at Dorothy’s Kitchen in Salinas’ Chinatown. He
has not gone to the nonprofit’s Thanksgiving festivity before, but he plans on
going for the first time Thursday.
“Born and raised in the
Salinas Valley, Rodriguez grew up going to his grandmother’s for Thanksgiving.
Homeless since 2012, Rodriguez said he considers many others in Chinatown—a
neighborhood often synonymous with poverty—like his family. The
opportunity to share his childhood tradition with his new family would mean a
lot to him, he said.”(The Californian)
— “The 8th Annual
Readers’ Choice Survey from Business Jet Travelerprovides an
interesting look into why people fly privately, what they want in their private
jets, where they are going, who they fly with, their favorite aircraft and
more. … First some good news. If flying privately and planning to
fly privately are signs of a strong economy, readers are quite optimistic.
While 45% of respondents said they flew about the same amount as the previous
year, 22% said they flew more and 8% said they flew much more, compared to 14%
who flew a bit less and 12% who flew much less. Looking ahead, 44% of the
magazine’s readers said they will fly about the same during the next 12 months,
34% said they will fly a bit more and 11% will fly much more, compared to just
11% who predict they will fly less.” (Forbes)
— “Last August,
Destini Johnson practically danced out of jail, after landing there for two
months on drug charges. She bubbled with excitement about her new freedom and
returning home to her parents in Muncie, Ind. She even talked about plans to
find a job.
“Eight months later,
Johnson, 27, lay in a coma, silent except for the beeping of machines. She
looked small and pale, buried in a tangle of hospital bedsheets and tubes,
after suffering a dozen or so strokes as a result of her latest opioid
overdose.
“Her mother, Katiena
Johnson, kept vigil at the intensive care unit at Ball Memorial Hospital in
Muncie every day, fretting not only about whether her daughter would live, or
how much brain damage she’d suffered, but also how to pay for the myriad costs
resulting from the latest harrowing chapter of Destini’s opioid addiction.
Katiena Johnson says her daughter is regaining consciousness and is out of the
ICU.” (NPR)
— “We are
especially reminded on Thanksgiving of how the virtue of gratitude enables us
to recognize, even in adverse situations, the love of God in every person,
every creature, and throughout nature. Let us be mindful of the reasons we are
grateful for our lives, for those around us, and for our communities. We also
commit to treating all with charity and mutual respect, spreading the spirit of
Thanksgiving throughout our country and across the world.” (Donald
J. Trump’s Presidential Proclamation on Thanksgiving Day,November
20, 2018)
— “MAKE AMERICA
GREAT AGAIN! AMERICA FIRST! …
“There are a lot of
CRIMINALS in the [immigrant] Caravan. We will stop them.
Catch and Detain! Judicial Activism, by people who know nothing about security
and the safety of our citizens, is putting our country in great danger. Not
good!” (Donald J. Trump’s tweets, November 21)
— “Some vehicles
made it out in time the day the Camp Fire [in northern California] ignited.
Others became grenades after being hit by flaming embers. The worst of it may
have happened in a town called Paradise, approximate population 26,000. ‘I
was driving down Neal Road, and the houses by the horse stables were already on
fire—the side of the road was on fire as we were driving through,’ said
David Cuen, a Paradise resident who I met at a tent encampment of Camp Fire
survivors in a Walmart parking lot in Chico. Neal Road is one of only three
roads from Paradise with access to Highway 99. It was one of the few ways out: ‘I
look in my rear-view mirror, count back 10 cars, and the 10th or
15th car, it blew up. The flames had overwhelmed all the cars by
it. And the cops were making people get in cars that had room. So, you’re
talking four to five people in each car.’ Cuen spent the week after
escaping the fire sharing a tent with his wife and her family.” (Slate)
* * * * *
Vast popular hardship
and suffering, on the one hand, and almost indescribable wealth and social
indifference, on the other. Two parties of the corporate oligarchy, dedicated
to war and political reaction. The impossible economic and political conditions
must produce sooner rather than later the greatest social upheavals in American
history.
"A series of recent polls in the US and Europe have shown a sharp
growth of popular disgust with capitalism and support for socialism. In May of
2017, in a survey conducted by the Union of European Broadcasters of people
aged 18 to 35, more than half said they would participate in a “large-scale
uprising.” Nine out of 10 agreed with the statement, “Banks and money rule the
world.”
"The ruling
class was particularly terrified by the teachers’
walkouts earlier
this year because the biggest strikes were
organized by
rank-and-file educators in a rebellion against
the unions,
reflecting the weakening grip of the pro-corporate
organizations
that have suppressed the class struggle for
decades."
“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. This is just one of the findings of the 2013 Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances released Thursday, which documents a sharp decline in working class living standards and a further
concentration of wealth in the hands of the rich and the super-rich.”
"The American phenomenon of record stock values fueling an ever greater concentration of wealth at the very top of society, while the economy is starved of productive investment, the social infrastructure crumbles, and working class living standards are driven down by entrenched unemployment, wage-cutting and government austerity policies, is part of a
broader global process."
"A defining expression of this crisis is the dominance of financial speculation and parasitism, to the point where a narrow international financial aristocracy plunders society’s resources in order to further enrich itself."
White House report on socialism
The
specter of Marx haunts the American ruling class
6 November 2018
Last month, the Council
of Economic Advisers, an agency of the Trump White House, released an
extraordinary report titled “The Opportunity Costs of Socialism.” The report
begins with the statement: “Coincident with the 200th anniversary of Karl
Marx’s birth, socialism is making a comeback in American political discourse.
Detailed policy proposals from self-declared socialists are gaining support in
Congress and among much of the younger electorate.”
The very fact that the
US government officially acknowledges a growth of popular
support for socialism,
particularly among the nation’s youth, testifies to vast changes taking place
in the political consciousness of the working class and the terror this is
striking within the ruling elite. America is, after all, a country
where anti-communism was for the greater part of a century a
state-sponsored secular religion. No ruling class has so ruthlessly
sought to exclude socialist politics
from political
discourse as the American ruling class.
The 70-page document is
itself an inane right-wing screed. It seeks to discredit socialism by
identifying it with capitalist countries such as Venezuela that have expanded
state ownership of parts of the economy while protecting private ownership of
the banks, and, with the post-2008 collapse of oil and other commodity prices,
increasingly attacked the living standards of the working class.
It identifies socialism
with proposals for mild social reform such as “Medicare for all,” raised and
increasingly abandoned by a section of the Democratic Party. It cites Milton
Friedman and Margaret Thatcher to promote the virtues of “economic freedom,”
i.e., the unrestrained operation of the capitalist market, and to denounce all
social reforms, business regulations, tax increases or anything else that
impinges on the oligarchy’s self-enrichment.
The report’s arguments
and themes find expression in the fascistic campaign speeches of Donald Trump,
who routinely and absurdly attacks the Democrats as socialists and accuses them
of seeking to turn America into another “socialist” Venezuela.
What has prompted this
effort to blackguard socialism?
A series of recent
polls in the US and Europe have shown a sharp growth of popular disgust with
capitalism and support for socialism. In May of 2017, in a survey conducted by
the Union of European Broadcasters of people aged 18 to 35, more than half said
they would participate in a “large-scale uprising.” Nine out of 10 agreed with
the statement, “Banks and money rule the world.”
Last November, a poll conducted
by YouGov showed that 51 percent of Americans between the ages of 21 and 29
would prefer to live in a socialist or communist country than in a capitalist
country.
In August of this year,
a Gallup poll found that for the first time
since the organization
began tracking the figure, fewer than half
of Americans aged 18–29
had a positive view of capitalism, while
more than half had a
positive view of socialism. The percentage of young people
viewing capitalism positively fell from 68 percent in 2010 to 45
percent this year, a 23-percentage point drop in just eight years.
This surge in interest
in socialism is bound up with a resurgence of class struggle in the US and
internationally. In the United States, the number of major strikes so far this year,
21, is triple the number in 2017. The ruling class was particularly terrified by
the teachers’ walkouts earlier this year because the biggest strikes were
organized by rank-and-file educators in a rebellion against the unions,
reflecting the weakening grip of the pro-corporate organizations that have
suppressed the class struggle for decades.
The growth of the class
struggle is an objective process that is driven by the global crisis of
capitalism, which finds its most acute social and political expression in the
center of world capitalism—the United States. It is the class struggle that
provides the key to the fight for genuine socialism.
Masses of workers and
youth are being driven into struggle and politically radicalized by decades of
uninterrupted war and the staggering growth of social inequality. This process
has accelerated during the 10 years since the Wall Street crash of 2008. The
Obama years saw the greatest transfer of wealth from the bottom to the top in
history, the escalation of the wars begun under Bush and their spread to Libya,
Syria and Yemen, and the intensification of mass surveillance, attacks on
immigrants and other police state measures.
This paved the way for
the elevation of Trump, the personification of the criminality and backwardness
of the ruling oligarchy.
Under conditions where
the typical CEO in the US now makes in a single day almost as much as the
average worker makes in an entire year, and the net worth of the 400 wealthiest
Americans has doubled over the past decade, the working class is looking for a
radical alternative to the status quo. As the Socialist Equality Party wrote in
its program eight years ago, “The Breakdown of Capitalism and the Fight for Socialism
in the United States”:
The change in objective conditions, however, will lead
American workers to change their minds. The reality of capitalism will provide
workers with many reasons to fight for a fundamental and revolutionary change
in the economic organization of society.
The response of the
ruling class is two-fold. First, the abandonment of bourgeois democratic forms
of rule and the turn toward dictatorship. The run-up to the midterm elections
has revealed the advanced stage of these preparations, with Trump’s fascistic
attacks on immigrants, deployment of troops to the border, threats to gun down
unarmed men, women and children seeking asylum, and his pledge to overturn the
14th Amendment establishing birthright citizenship.
That this has evoked no
serious opposition from the Democrats and the media makes clear that the entire
ruling class is united around a turn to authoritarianism. Indeed, the Democrats
are spearheading the drive to censor the internet in order to silence left-wing
and socialist opposition.
The second response is
to promote phony socialists such as Bernie Sanders, the Democratic Socialists
of America (DSA) and other pseudo-left organizations in order to confuse the
working class and channel its opposition back behind the Democratic Party.
In 2018, with Sanders
totally integrated into the Democratic Party leadership, this role has been
largely delegated to the DSA, which functions as an arm of the Democrats. Two
DSA members, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York and Rashida Tlaib in Detroit,
are likely to win seats in the House of Representatives as candidates of the
Democratic Party.
The closer they come to
taking office, the more they seek to distance themselves from their supposed
socialist affiliation. Ocasio-Cortez, for example, joined Sanders in eulogizing
the recently deceased war-monger John McCain, refused to answer when asked if
she opposed the US wars in the Middle East, and dropped her campaign call for
the abolition of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
OBAMA:
SERVANT OF THE 1%
Richest
one percent controls nearly half of global wealth
The richest one
percent of the world’s population now controls 48.2 percent of global wealth,
up from 46 percent last year.
Record high income in 2017 for top
one percent of wage earners in US
In 2017, the top one
percent of US wage earners received their highest paychecks ever, according to
a report by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).
Based on newly released
data from the Social Security Administration, the EPI shows that the top one
percent of the population saw their paychecks increase by 3.7 percent in 2017—a
rate nearly quadruple the bottom 90 percent of the population. The growth was
driven by the top 0.1 percent, which includes many CEOs and corporate
executives, whose pay increased eight percent and averaged $2,757,000 last
year.
The EPI report is only
the latest exposure of the gaping inequality between the vast majority of the
population and the modern-day aristocracy that rules over them.
The EPI shows that the
bottom 90 percent of wage earners have increased their pay by 22.2 percent
between 1979 and 2017. Today, this bottom 90 percent makes an average of just
$36,182 a year, which is eaten up by the cost of housing and the growing burden
of education, health care, and retirement.
Meanwhile, the top one
percent has increased its wages by 157 percent during this same period, a rate
seven times faster than the other group. This top segment makes an average of
$718,766 a year. Those in-between, the 90th to 99th percentile, have increased
their wages by 57.4 percent. They now make an average of $152,476 a year—more
than four times the bottom 90 percent.
Decades of decaying
capitalism have led to this accelerating divide. While the rich accumulate wealth
with no restriction, workers’ wages and benefits have been under increasing
attack. In 1979, 90 percent of the population took in 70 percent of the
nation’s income. But, by 2017, that fell to only 61 percent.
Even more, while the
bottom 90 percent of the population may take in 61 percent of the wages, large
sections of the workforce today barely pull in any income at all. For
example, Social Security Administration data found that the bottom 54
percent of wage earners in the United States, 89.5 million people, make an
average of just $15,100 a year. This 54 percent of the population earns only 17
percent of all wages paid in America.
However unequal, these
wage inequalities still do not fully present the divide between rich and poor.
The ultra-wealthy derive their wealth not primarily from wages, but from assets
and equities—principally from the stock market. While the bottom 90 percent of
the population made 61 percent of the wages in 2017, they owned even less, just
27 percent of the wealth (according to the World Inequality Report
2018 by Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez, and Gabriel Zucman).
The massive increase in
the value of the stock market, which only a small segment of the population
participates in, means that the top 10 percent of the population controls 73
percent of all wealth in the United States. Just three men—Jeff Bezos, Warren
Buffet and Bill Gates—had more wealth than the bottom half of America combined
last year.
Wages are so low in the
United States that roughly half of the population falls deeper into debt every
year. A Reuters report from July found that the pretax net income (that is,
income minus expense) of the bottom 40 percent of the population was an average
of negative $11,660. Even the middle quintile of the
population, the 40th to 60th percentile, breaks even with an average of only
$2,836 a year.
As the Social Security
Administration numbers show, 67.4 percent of the population made less than the
average wage, $48,250 a year in 2017, a sum that is inadequate to support a
family in many cities—especially, with high housing costs, health care,
education, and retirement factored in.
For the ruling class,
though, workers’ wages are already too much. The volatility of the stock market
and the deep fear that the current bull market will collapse has made
politicians and businessmen anxious of any sign of wage increases.
In August, wages in the
US rose just 0.2 percent above the inflation rate, the highest in nine years.
Though the increase was tiny, it was enough to encourage the Federal Reserve to
increase the interest rate past two percent for the first time since 2008.
Raising interest rates helps to depress workers’ wages by lowering borrowing
and spending. As the Financial Times noted, stopping wage
growth was “central” to the Federal Reserve’s move.
Further analysis of the
Social Security Administration data shows that in 2017, 147,754 people reported
wages of 1 million dollars or more—roughly, the top 0.05 percent. Their
combined total income of $372 billion could pay for the US federal education
budget five times over.
These wages, however
large, still pale in comparison to the money the ultra-rich acquire from the
stock market. For example, share buybacks and dividend payments, a way of
funneling money to shareholders, will eclipse $1 trillion this year.
Whatever the immediate
source, the wealth of the rich derives from the great mass of people who do the
actual work. Across the United States and around the world, workers, young
people, and students have entered into struggle this year over pay, education,
health care, immigration, war and democratic rights. This growing movement of
the working class must set as its aim confiscating the wealth and power of this
tiny parasitic oligarchy. Society’s wealth must be democratically controlled by
those who produce it.
THE STAGGERING ECONOMIC INEQUALITY UNDER OBAMA'S ADMINISTRATION SERVING THE BILLIONAIRE CLASS.
THE
ENTIRE REASON BEHIND AMNESTY IS TO KEEP WAGES DEPRESSED AND PASS ALONG THE REAL
COST OF "CHEAP" MEXICAN LABOR TO THE AMERICAN MIDDLE CLASS.
AND IT'S WORKING!
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS
“Calling income and wealth inequality the "great
moral issue of our time," Sanders laid out a sweeping, almost unimaginably
expensive program to transfer wealth from the richest Americans to the poor and
middle class. A $1 trillion public works program to create "13 million
good-paying jobs." A $15-an-hour federal minimum wage. "Pay
equity" for women. Paid sick leave and vacation for everyone. Higher taxes
on the wealthy. Free tuition at all public colleges and universities. A
Medicare-for-all single-payer health care system. Expanded Social Security
benefits. Universal pre-K.” WASHINGTON EXAMINER
YOU THOUGHT OBAMA INVITED
OBAMANOMICS and started the assault on the American middle-class?
NOPE!
“By the time of Bill Clinton’s election in 1992, the Democratic
Party had completely repudiated its association with the reforms of the New
Deal and Great Society periods. Clinton gutted welfare programs to provide an
ample supply of cheap labor for the rich (WHICH NOW MEANS OPEN BORDERS AND NO
E-VERIFY!), including a growing layer of black capitalists, and passed the 1994
Federal Crime Bill, with its notorious “three strikes” provision that has
helped create the largest prison population in the world.”
Clinton
Foundation Put On Watch List Of Suspicious ‘Charities’
OBAMA: SERVANT
OF THE 1%
Richest one
percent controls nearly half of global wealth
The richest one percent of the
world’s population now controls 48.2 percent of global wealth, up from 46
percent last year.
The report found that the growth of global inequality has
accelerated sharply since the 2008 financial crisis, as the values of financial
assets have soared while wages have stagnated and declined.
Millionaires projected to own 46 percent of global private wealth by 2019
By Gabriel Black
18 June 2015
Households with more than a million
(US) dollars in private wealth are projected to own 46 percent of global
private wealth in 2019 according to a new report by the Boston
Consulting Group (BCG).
This large percentage, however,
only includes cash, savings, money market funds and listed securities held
through managed investments—collectively known as “private wealth.” It leaves
out businesses, residences and luxury goods, which comprise a substantial
portion of the rich’s net worth.
At the end of 2014, millionaire households owned about 41
percent of global private wealth, according to BCG. This means that
collectively these 17 million households owned roughly $67.24 trillion in
liquid assets, or about $4 million per household.
In total, the world added $17.5
trillion of new private wealth between 2013 and 2014. The report notes that
nearly three quarters of all these gains came from previously existing wealth.
In other words, the vast majority of money gained has been due to pre-existing
assets increasing in value—not the creation of new material things.
This trend is the result of the
massive infusions of cheap credit into the financial markets by central banks.
The policy of “quantitative easing” has led to a dramatic expansion of the
stock market even while global economic growth has slumped.
While the wealth of the rich is growing at a breakneck pace,
there is a stratification of growth within the super wealthy, skewed towards
the very top.
In
2014, those with over $100 million in private wealth saw their wealth increase
11 percent in one year alone. Collectively, these households owned $10 trillion
in 2014, 6 percent of the world’s private wealth. According to the report,
“This top segment is expected to be the fastest growing, in both the number of
households and total wealth.” They are expected to see 12 percent compound
growth on their wealth in the next five years.
Those families with wealth between
$20 and $100 million also rose substantially in 2014—seeing a 34 percent
increase in their wealth in twelve short months. They now own $9 trillion. In
five years they will surpass $14 trillion according to the report.
Coming in last in the “high net
worth” population are those with between $1 million and $20 million in private
wealth. These households are expected to see their wealth grow by 7.2 percent
each year, going from $49 trillion to $70.1 trillion dollars, several
percentage points below the highest bracket’s 12 percent growth rate.
The
gains in private wealth of the ultra-rich stand in sharp contrast to the
experience of billions of people around the globe. While wealth accumulation
has sharply sped up for the ultra-wealthy, the vast majority of people have not
even begun to recover from the past recession.
An Oxfam report from
January, for example, shows that the bottom 99 percent of the world’s
population went from having about 56 percent of the world’s wealth in 2010 to
having 52 percent of it in 2014. Meanwhile the top 1 percent saw its wealth rise
from 44 to 48 percent of the world’s wealth.
In
2014 the Russell Sage Foundation found that between 2003 and 2013, the median
household net worth of those in the United States fell from $87,992 to
$56,335—a drop of 36 percent. While the rich also saw their wealth drop during
the recession, they are more than making that money back. Between 2009 and
2012, 95 percent of all the income gains in the US went to the top 1 percent.
This is the most distorted post-recession income gain on record.
As the Organization for Economic
Co-operation and Development (OECD) has noted, in the United States “between
2007 and 2013, net wealth fell on average 2.3 percent, but it fell ten-times
more (26 percent) for those at the bottom 20 percent of the distribution.” The
2015 report concludes that “low-income households have not benefited at all
from income growth.”
Another report by Knight
Frank, looks at those with wealth exceeding $30 million. The report notes
that in 2014 these 172,850 ultra-high-net-worth individuals increased their
collective wealth by $700 billion. Their total wealth now rests at $20.8
trillion.
The report also draws attention to
the disconnection between the rich and the actual economy. It states that the
growth of this ultra-wealthy population “came despite weaker-than-anticipated
global economic growth. During 2014 the IMF was forced to downgrade its
forecast increase for world output from 3.7 percent to 3.3 percent.”
DICK MORRIS:
On America’s First Family of Crime….. NO! Not
the Bushes again!
Clinton global hucksterism – Selling out America
like they sold out the Lincoln Bedroom.
HILLARY CLINTON: CRONY CLASS’ “Hope
and Change” huckster’s successor!
“I serve Obama’s cronies first, illegals second
and together we will loot the American middle-class to double our figures. It’s
called BAILOUTS! Evita Peron Clinton
At this point, Clinton is
the choice of most multimillionaires to be the next occupant of the White
House. A recent CNBC poll of 750 millionaires found 53 percent support for
Clinton in a contest with Republican Jeb Bush, 14 points better than Obama’s
showing in the 2012 election with the same group.
Sen. Bernie Sanders – America’s answer to Wall
Street’s looting, the war on the American middle-class and jobs for legals!
“At this point, Clinton is the choice of
most multimillionaires to be the next occupant of the White House. A recent
CNBC poll of 750 millionaires found 53 percent support for Clinton in a contest
with Republican Jeb Bush, 14 points better than Obama’s showing in the 2012
election with the same group.”
THE CRONY
CLASS:
OBAMACLINTONOMICS
was created by BILLARY CLINTON!
Income inequality grows
FOUR TIMES FASTER under Obama than Bush.
“By the
time of Bill Clinton’s election in 1992, the Democratic Party had completely
repudiated its association with the reforms of the New Deal and Great Society
periods. Clinton gutted welfare programs to provide an ample supply of cheap
labor for the rich (WHICH NOW MEANS OPEN BORDERS AND NO E-VERIFY!), including a
growing layer of black capitalists, and passed the 1994 Federal Crime Bill,
with its notorious “three strikes” provision that has helped create the largest
prison population in the world.”
*
“Calling
income and wealth inequality the "great moral issue of our time,"
Sanders laid out a sweeping, almost unimaginably expensive program to transfer
wealth from the richest Americans to the poor and middle class. A $1 trillion
public works program to create "13 million good-paying jobs." A
$15-an-hour federal minimum wage. "Pay equity" for women. Paid sick
leave and vacation for everyone. Higher taxes on the wealthy. Free tuition at
all public colleges and universities. A Medicare-for-all single-payer health
care system. Expanded Social Security benefits. Universal pre-K.” WASHINGTON
EXAMINER
OBAMA’S WALL STREET and the
LOOTING of AMERICA – SECOND TERM
The
corporate cash hoard has likewise reached a new record, hitting an estimated
$1.79 trillion in the fourth quarter of last year, up from $1.77 trillion in
the previous quarter. Instead of investing the money, however, companies are
using it to buy back their own stock and pay out record dividends.
Megan McArdle Discusses How
America's Elites Are Rigging the Rules - Newsweek/The Daily Beast special
correspondent Megan McArdle joins Scott Rasmussen for a discussion on America's
new Mandarin class.
PATRICK
BUCHANAN: OBAMA’S ASSAULT ON AMERICA BEGINS AT OUR BORDERS
WHO
REALLY PAYS FOR THE CRIMES OF OBAMA’S CRONY DONORS???
LAST WEEK BARACK OBAMA
CELEBRATED FIVE YEARS OF THE LOOTING BY HIS WALL STREET BANKSTERS… now it’s
back to cutting social programs to pay for all that rape by the 1% he
represents. The following week it will be back to the AMNESTY HOAX to legalize
Mexico’s looting of America and make it legal that Mexicans get our jobs first…
they already do!
As in previous budget
crises under the Obama administration, the events are being stage-managed by
the two corporate-controlled parties to give the illusion of partisan gridlock
and confrontation over principles—in this case, whether to go forward with the
implementation of the Obama health care program—while behind the scenes all
factions within the ruling elite agree that massive cuts must be carried
through in basic federal social programs.
OBAMA’S
CRONY CAPITALISM – A NATION RULED BY CRIMINAL WALL STREET BANKSTERS AND OBAMA
DONORS
GET THIS BOOK
Culture of
Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies
by Michelle Malkin
In her shocking new
book, Malkin digs deep into the records of President Obama's staff,
revealing corrupt dealings, questionable pasts, and abuses of power throughout
his administration.
PATRICK
BUCHANAN
After Obama
has completely destroyed the American economy, handed millions of jobs to
illegals and billions of dollars in welfare to illegals…. BUT WHAT COMES NEXT?
OBAMANOMICS: IS IT WORKING???
Millionaires
projected to own 46 percent of global private wealth by 2019
By
Gabriel Black
18 June 2015
Households with more than a million (US)
dollars in private wealth are projected to own 46 percent of global private
wealth in 2019 according to a new report by the Boston Consulting
Group (BCG).
This large percentage, however, only
includes cash, savings, money market funds and listed securities held through
managed investments—collectively known as “private wealth.” It leaves out
businesses, residences and luxury goods, which comprise a substantial portion
of the rich’s net worth.
At the end of 2014, millionaire households
owned about 41 percent of global private wealth, according to BCG. This means
that collectively these 17 million households owned roughly $67.24 trillion in
liquid assets, or about $4 million per household.
In total, the world added $17.5 trillion
of new private wealth between 2013 and 2014. The report notes that nearly three
quarters of all these gains came from previously existing wealth. In other
words, the vast majority of money gained has been due to pre-existing assets
increasing in value—not the creation of new material things.
This trend is the result of the massive
infusions of cheap credit into the financial markets by central banks. The
policy of “quantitative easing” has led to a dramatic expansion of the stock
market even while global economic growth has slumped.
While the wealth of the rich is growing at
a breakneck pace, there is a stratification of growth within the super wealthy,
skewed towards the very top.
In 2014, those with over $100 million in
private wealth saw their wealth increase 11 percent in one year alone.
Collectively, these households owned $10 trillion in 2014, 6 percent of the
world’s private wealth. According to the report, “This top segment is expected
to be the fastest growing, in both the number of households and total wealth.”
They are expected to see 12 percent compound growth on their wealth in the next
five years.
Those families with wealth between $20 and
$100 million also rose substantially in 2014—seeing a 34 percent increase in
their wealth in twelve short months. They now own $9 trillion. In five years
they will surpass $14 trillion according to the report.
Coming in last in the “high net worth”
population are those with between $1 million and $20 million in private wealth.
These households are expected to see their wealth grow by 7.2 percent each
year, going from $49 trillion to $70.1 trillion dollars, several percentage
points below the highest bracket’s 12 percent growth rate.
The gains in private wealth of the
ultra-rich stand in sharp contrast to the experience of billions of people
around the globe. While wealth accumulation has sharply sped up for the
ultra-wealthy, the vast majority of people have not even begun to recover from
the past recession.
An Oxfam report from January, for example, shows
that the bottom 99 percent of the world’s population went from having about 56
percent of the world’s wealth in 2010 to having 52 percent of it in 2014.
Meanwhile the top 1 percent saw its wealth rise from 44 to 48 percent of the
world’s wealth.
In 2014 the Russell Sage Foundation found
that between 2003 and 2013, the median household net worth of those in the
United States fell from $87,992 to $56,335—a drop of 36 percent. While the rich
also saw their wealth drop during the recession, they are more than making that
money back. Between 2009 and 2012, 95 percent of all the income gains in the US
went to the top 1 percent. This is the most distorted post-recession income gain
on record.
As the Organization for Economic
Co-operation and Development (OECD) has noted, in the United States “between
2007 and 2013, net wealth fell on average 2.3 percent, but it fell ten-times
more (26 percent) for those at the bottom 20 percent of the distribution.” The
2015 report concludes that “low-income households have not benefited at all
from income growth.”
Another report by Knight Frank,
looks at those with wealth exceeding $30 million. The report notes that in 2014
these 172,850 ultra-high-net-worth individuals increased their collective
wealth by $700 billion. Their total wealth now rests at $20.8 trillion.
The report also draws attention to the
disconnection between the rich and the actual economy. It states that the
growth of this ultra-wealthy population “came despite weaker-than-anticipated
global economic growth. During 2014 the IMF was forced to downgrade its
forecast increase for world output from 3.7 percent to 3.3 percent.”
THE CRONY CLASS:
OBAMACLINTONOMICS
was created by BILLARY CLINTON!
Income inequality grows
FOUR TIMES FASTER under Obama than Bush.
“By the
time of Bill Clinton’s election in 1992, the Democratic Party had completely
repudiated its association with the reforms of the New Deal and Great Society
periods. Clinton gutted welfare programs to provide an ample supply of cheap
labor for the rich (WHICH NOW MEANS OPEN BORDERS AND NO E-VERIFY!), including a
growing layer of black capitalists, and passed the 1994 Federal Crime Bill,
with its notorious “three strikes” provision that has helped create the largest
prison population in the world.”
*
“Calling income and wealth inequality the "great
moral issue of our time," Sanders laid out a sweeping, almost unimaginably
expensive program to transfer wealth from the richest Americans to the poor and
middle class. A $1 trillion public works program to create "13 million
good-paying jobs." A $15-an-hour federal minimum wage. "Pay
equity" for women. Paid sick leave and vacation for everyone. Higher taxes
on the wealthy. Free tuition at all public colleges and universities. A
Medicare-for-all single-payer health care system. Expanded Social Security
benefits. Universal pre-K.” WASHINGTON EXAMINER
OBAMA’S WALL STREET and the
LOOTING of AMERICA – SECOND TERM
The
corporate cash hoard has likewise reached a new record, hitting an estimated
$1.79 trillion in the fourth quarter of last year, up from $1.77 trillion in
the previous quarter. Instead of investing the money, however, companies are
using it to buy back their own stock and pay out record dividends.
Megan McArdle Discusses How
America's Elites Are Rigging the Rules - Newsweek/The Daily Beast special
correspondent Megan McArdle joins Scott Rasmussen for a discussion on America's
new Mandarin class.
POLL: MOST INCOMPETENT AND
DISHONEST PRESIDENT SINCE…. Well, isn’t Obama merely Bush’s THIRD and FOURTH
TERMS??
OBAMA’S CRONY CAPITALISM
A NATION RULED BY CRIMINAL WALL
STREET BANKSTERS AND OBAMA DONORS
PATRICK BUCHANAN
After Obama has completely destroyed
the American economy, handed millions of jobs to illegals and billions of
dollars in welfare to illegals…. BUT WHAT COMES NEXT?
OBAMANOMICS: IS IT WORKING???
Millionaires projected to own 46 percent of
global private wealth by 2019
By Gabriel Black
18 June 2015
Households with more than a million (US) dollars in private wealth
are projected to own 46 percent of global private wealth in 2019 according to a
new report by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG).
This large percentage, however, only includes cash, savings, money
market funds and listed securities held through managed
investments—collectively known as “private wealth.” It leaves out businesses,
residences and luxury goods, which comprise a substantial portion of the rich’s
net worth.
At the end of 2014, millionaire households owned about 41 percent
of global private wealth, according to BCG. This means that collectively these
17 million households owned roughly $67.24 trillion in liquid assets, or about
$4 million per household.
In total, the world added $17.5 trillion of new private wealth
between 2013 and 2014. The report notes that nearly three quarters of all these
gains came from previously existing wealth. In other words, the vast majority
of money gained has been due to pre-existing assets increasing in value—not the
creation of new material things.
This trend is the result of the massive infusions of cheap credit
into the financial markets by central banks. The policy of “quantitative
easing” has led to a dramatic expansion of the stock market even while global
economic growth has slumped.
While the wealth of the rich is growing at a breakneck pace, there
is a stratification of growth within the super wealthy, skewed towards the very
top.
In 2014, those with over $100 million in private wealth saw their
wealth increase 11 percent in one year alone. Collectively, these households
owned $10 trillion in 2014, 6 percent of the world’s private wealth. According
to the report, “This top segment is expected to be the fastest growing, in both
the number of households and total wealth.” They are expected to see 12 percent
compound growth on their wealth in the next five years.
Those families with wealth between $20 and $100 million also rose
substantially in 2014—seeing a 34 percent increase in their wealth in twelve
short months. They now own $9 trillion. In five years they will surpass $14
trillion according to the report.
Coming in last in the “high net worth” population are those with
between $1 million and $20 million in private wealth. These households are
expected to see their wealth grow by 7.2 percent each year, going from $49
trillion to $70.1 trillion dollars, several percentage points below the highest
bracket’s 12 percent growth rate.
The gains in private wealth of the ultra-rich stand in sharp
contrast to the experience of billions of people around the globe. While wealth
accumulation has sharply sped up for the ultra-wealthy, the vast majority of
people have not even begun to recover from the past recession.
An Oxfam report from January, for example, shows
that the bottom 99 percent of the world’s population went from having about 56
percent of the world’s wealth in 2010 to having 52 percent of it in 2014.
Meanwhile the top 1 percent saw its wealth rise from 44 to 48 percent of the
world’s wealth.
In 2014 the Russell Sage Foundation found that between 2003 and
2013, the median household net worth of those in the United States fell from
$87,992 to $56,335—a drop of 36 percent. While the rich also saw their wealth drop
during the recession, they are more than making that money back. Between 2009
and 2012, 95 percent of all the income gains in the US went to the top 1
percent. This is the most distorted post-recession income gain on record.
As the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development
(OECD) has noted, in the United States “between 2007 and 2013, net wealth fell
on average 2.3 percent, but it fell ten-times more (26 percent) for those at
the bottom 20 percent of the distribution.” The 2015 report concludes that
“low-income households have not benefited at all from income growth.”
Another report by Knight Frank, looks at those with
wealth exceeding $30 million. The report notes that in 2014 these 172,850
ultra-high-net-worth individuals increased their collective wealth by $700
billion. Their total wealth now rests at $20.8 trillion.
The report also draws attention to the disconnection between the
rich and the actual economy. It states that the growth of this ultra-wealthy
population “came despite weaker-than-anticipated global economic growth. During
2014 the IMF was forced to downgrade its forecast increase for world output
from 3.7 percent to 3.3 percent.”
OBAMA-CLINTONomics: the
never end war on the American middle-class. But we still get the tax bills for
the looting of their Wall Street cronies and their bailouts and billions for
Mexico’s welfare state in our borders.
While the wealth of the rich
is growing at a breakneck pace, there is a stratification of growth within the
super wealthy, skewed towards the very top.
In
2014, those with over $100 million in private wealth saw their wealth increase
11 percent in one year alone. Collectively, these households owned $10 trillion
in 2014, 6 percent of the world’s private wealth. According to the report,
“This top segment is expected to be the fastest growing, in both the number of
households and total wealth.” They are expected to see 12 percent compound
growth on their wealth in the next five years.
In 2014 the Russell Sage
Foundation found that between
2003 and 2013, the median
household net worth of those in
the United States fell from
$87,992 to $56,335—a drop of 36
percent. While the rich also saw
their wealth drop during the
recession, they are more than
making that money back.
Between 2009 and 2012, 95 percent
of all the income gains in
the US went to the top 1 percent.
This is the most distorted
post-recession income gain on
record.
INCOME PLUMMETS UNDER OBAMA AND
HIS WALL STREET CRONIES
collapse
of household income in the US… STILL BILLIONS IN WELFARE HANDED TO ILLEGALS…
they already get our jobs and are voting for more!
INCOME
PLUMMETS UNDER OBAMA… most jobs go to illegals.
AS HIS CRONY BANKSTERS
CONTINUE TO LOOT, INCOMES PLUMMET FOR AMERICANS (LEGALS).
GOOD TIME FOR AMNESTY FOR
MILLIONS OF LOOTING MEXICANS?
MORE HERE:
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2014/09/and-still-democrat-party-wants-millions.html
“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. This is just one of the findings of the 2013
Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances released Thursday, which documents
a sharp decline in working class living standards and a further concentration
of wealth in the hands of the rich and the super-rich.”
"During the month, some 432,000 people in the US gave up looking for a job." EVEN AS JEB BUSH, HILLARY CLINTON and BERNIE SANDERS PREACH AMNESTY! AMNESTY! AMNESTY!
"The American phenomenon of record stock values fueling an ever greater concentration of wealth at the very top of society, while the economy is starved of productive investment, the social infrastructure crumbles, and working class living standards are driven down by entrenched unemployment, wage-cutting and government austerity policies, is part of a broader global process."
HILLARY CLINTON'S BIGGEST DONORS ARE OBAMA'S CRIMINAL CRONY
BANKSTERS!
"A defining expression of this crisis is the dominance of financial speculation and parasitism, to the point where a narrow international financial aristocracy plunders society’s resources in order to further enrich itself."
Federal Reserve documents stagnant state of US economy
Federal
Reserve documents stagnant state of US economy
By Barry Grey
21 July 2015
The
US Federal Reserve Board last week released its semiannual Monetary Policy
Report to Congress, providing an assessment of the state of the American
economy and outlining the central bank’s monetary policy going forward. The
report, along with Fed Chair Janet Yellen’s testimony before both the House of
Representatives and the Senate, as well as a speech by Yellen the previous week
in Cleveland, present a grim picture of the reality behind the official talk of
economic “recovery.”
In her prepared remarks to Congress last Wednesday and Thursday, Yellen said, “Looking forward, prospects are favorable for further improvement in the US labor market and the economy more broadly.”
She reiterated her assurances that while the Fed would likely begin to raise its benchmark federal funds interest rate later this year from the 0.0 to 0.25 percent level it has maintained since shortly after the 2008 financial crash, it would do so only slowly and gradually, keeping short-term rates well below historically normal levels for an indefinite period.
This was an expected, but nevertheless welcome, signal to the American financial elite, which has enjoyed a spectacular rise in corporate profits, stock values and personal wealth since 2009 thanks to the flood of virtually free money provided by the Fed.
"But as Yellen’s remarks and the Fed report indicate, the explosion of asset values and wealth accumulation at the very top of the economic ladder has occurred alongside an intractable and continuing slump in the real economy."
In her prepared testimony to the House Financial Services Committee and the Senate Banking Committee, Yellen noted the following features of the performance of the US economy over the first six months of 2015:
* A sharp decline in the rate of economic growth as compared to 2014, including an actual contraction in the first quarter of the year.
* A substantial slackening (19 percent) in average monthly job-creation, from 260,000 last year to 210,000 thus far in 2015.
* Declines in domestic spending and industrial production.
In her July 10 speech to the City Club of Cleveland, Yellen cited an even longer list of negative indices, including:
* Growth in real gross domestic product (GDP) since the official beginning of the recovery in June, 2009 has averaged a mere 2.25 percent per year, a full one percentage point less than the average rate over the 25 years preceding what Yellen called the “Great Recession.”
* While manufacturing employment nationwide has increased by about 850,000 since the end of 2009, there are still almost 1.5 million fewer manufacturing jobs than just before the recession.
* Real GDP and industrial production both declined in the first quarter of this year. Industrial production continued to fall in April and May.
* Residential construction (despite extremely low mortgage rates by historical standards) has remained “quote soft.”
* Productivity growth has been “weak,” largely because “Business owners and managers… have not substantially increased their capital expenditures,” and “Businesses are holding large amounts of cash on their balance sheets.”
* Reflecting the general stagnation and even slump in the real economy, core inflation rose by only 1.2 percent over the past 12 months.
The Monetary Policy Report issued by the Fed includes facts that are, if anything, even more alarming, including:
* “Labor productivity in the business sector is reported to have declined in both the fourth quarter of 2014 and the first quarter of 2015.”
* “Exports fell markedly in the first quarter, held back by lackluster growth abroad.”
* “Overall construction activity remains well below its pre-recession levels.”
* “Since the recession began, the gains in… nominal compensation [workers’ wages and benefits] have fallen well short of their pre-recession averages, and growth of real compensation has fallen short of productivity growth over much of this period.”
* “Overall business investment has turned down as investment in the energy sector has plunged. Business investment fell at an annual rate of 2 percent in first quarter… Business outlays for structures outside of the energy sector also declined in the first quarter…”
The report incorporates the Fed’s projections for US economic growth, published following the June meeting of the central bank’s policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee. They include a downward revision of the projection for 2015 to 1.8 percent-2.0 percent from the March projection of 2.3 percent to 2.7 percent.
That the US economy continues to stagnate and even contract is indicated by two surveys released last week while Yellen was testifying before Congress. The Fed reported that factory production failed to increase in June for the second straight month and output in the auto sector fell 3.7 percent. The Commerce Department reported that retail sales unexpectedly fell in June, declining by 0.3 percent.
These statistics follow the employment report for June, which showed that the share of the US working-age population either employed or actively looking for work, known as the labor force participation rate, fell to 62.6 percent, its lowest level in 38 years. During the month, some 432,000 people in the US gave up looking for a job.
The disastrous figures on business investment are perhaps the most telling indicators of the underlying crisis of the capitalist system. The Fed report attributes the sharp decline so far this year primarily to the dramatic fall in oil prices and resulting contraction in investment and construction in the energy sector. But the plunge in oil prices is itself a symptom of a general slowdown in the world economy.
Moreover, a dramatic decline in productive investment is common to all of the major industrialized economies of Europe and North America. In its World Economic Outlook of last April, the International Monetary Fund for the first time since the 2008 financial crisis acknowledged that there was no prospect for an early return to pre-recession levels of economic growth, linking this bleak prognosis to a general and pronounced decline in productive investment.
The American phenomenon of record stock values fueling an ever greater concentration of wealth at the very top of society, while the economy is starved of productive investment, the social infrastructure crumbles, and working class living standards are driven down by entrenched unemployment, wage-cutting and government austerity policies, is part of a broader global process.
In her prepared remarks to Congress last Wednesday and Thursday, Yellen said, “Looking forward, prospects are favorable for further improvement in the US labor market and the economy more broadly.”
She reiterated her assurances that while the Fed would likely begin to raise its benchmark federal funds interest rate later this year from the 0.0 to 0.25 percent level it has maintained since shortly after the 2008 financial crash, it would do so only slowly and gradually, keeping short-term rates well below historically normal levels for an indefinite period.
This was an expected, but nevertheless welcome, signal to the American financial elite, which has enjoyed a spectacular rise in corporate profits, stock values and personal wealth since 2009 thanks to the flood of virtually free money provided by the Fed.
"But as Yellen’s remarks and the Fed report indicate, the explosion of asset values and wealth accumulation at the very top of the economic ladder has occurred alongside an intractable and continuing slump in the real economy."
In her prepared testimony to the House Financial Services Committee and the Senate Banking Committee, Yellen noted the following features of the performance of the US economy over the first six months of 2015:
* A sharp decline in the rate of economic growth as compared to 2014, including an actual contraction in the first quarter of the year.
* A substantial slackening (19 percent) in average monthly job-creation, from 260,000 last year to 210,000 thus far in 2015.
* Declines in domestic spending and industrial production.
In her July 10 speech to the City Club of Cleveland, Yellen cited an even longer list of negative indices, including:
* Growth in real gross domestic product (GDP) since the official beginning of the recovery in June, 2009 has averaged a mere 2.25 percent per year, a full one percentage point less than the average rate over the 25 years preceding what Yellen called the “Great Recession.”
* While manufacturing employment nationwide has increased by about 850,000 since the end of 2009, there are still almost 1.5 million fewer manufacturing jobs than just before the recession.
* Real GDP and industrial production both declined in the first quarter of this year. Industrial production continued to fall in April and May.
* Residential construction (despite extremely low mortgage rates by historical standards) has remained “quote soft.”
* Productivity growth has been “weak,” largely because “Business owners and managers… have not substantially increased their capital expenditures,” and “Businesses are holding large amounts of cash on their balance sheets.”
* Reflecting the general stagnation and even slump in the real economy, core inflation rose by only 1.2 percent over the past 12 months.
The Monetary Policy Report issued by the Fed includes facts that are, if anything, even more alarming, including:
* “Labor productivity in the business sector is reported to have declined in both the fourth quarter of 2014 and the first quarter of 2015.”
* “Exports fell markedly in the first quarter, held back by lackluster growth abroad.”
* “Overall construction activity remains well below its pre-recession levels.”
* “Since the recession began, the gains in… nominal compensation [workers’ wages and benefits] have fallen well short of their pre-recession averages, and growth of real compensation has fallen short of productivity growth over much of this period.”
* “Overall business investment has turned down as investment in the energy sector has plunged. Business investment fell at an annual rate of 2 percent in first quarter… Business outlays for structures outside of the energy sector also declined in the first quarter…”
The report incorporates the Fed’s projections for US economic growth, published following the June meeting of the central bank’s policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee. They include a downward revision of the projection for 2015 to 1.8 percent-2.0 percent from the March projection of 2.3 percent to 2.7 percent.
That the US economy continues to stagnate and even contract is indicated by two surveys released last week while Yellen was testifying before Congress. The Fed reported that factory production failed to increase in June for the second straight month and output in the auto sector fell 3.7 percent. The Commerce Department reported that retail sales unexpectedly fell in June, declining by 0.3 percent.
These statistics follow the employment report for June, which showed that the share of the US working-age population either employed or actively looking for work, known as the labor force participation rate, fell to 62.6 percent, its lowest level in 38 years. During the month, some 432,000 people in the US gave up looking for a job.
The disastrous figures on business investment are perhaps the most telling indicators of the underlying crisis of the capitalist system. The Fed report attributes the sharp decline so far this year primarily to the dramatic fall in oil prices and resulting contraction in investment and construction in the energy sector. But the plunge in oil prices is itself a symptom of a general slowdown in the world economy.
Moreover, a dramatic decline in productive investment is common to all of the major industrialized economies of Europe and North America. In its World Economic Outlook of last April, the International Monetary Fund for the first time since the 2008 financial crisis acknowledged that there was no prospect for an early return to pre-recession levels of economic growth, linking this bleak prognosis to a general and pronounced decline in productive investment.
The American phenomenon of record stock values fueling an ever greater concentration of wealth at the very top of society, while the economy is starved of productive investment, the social infrastructure crumbles, and working class living standards are driven down by entrenched unemployment, wage-cutting and government austerity policies, is part of a broader global process.
The economic crisis in the US and internationally is not simply a conjunctural downturn. It is a systemic crisis of global capitalism, centered in the US. A defining expression of this crisis is the dominance of financial speculation and parasitism, to the point where a narrow international financial aristocracy plunders society’s resources in order to further enrich itself.
While the economy is starved of productive investment, entirely parasitic and socially destructive activities such as stock buybacks, dividend hikes and mergers and acquisitions return to pre-crash levels and head for new heights. US corporations have spent more on stock buybacks so far this year than on factories and equipment.
The intractable nature of this crisis, within the framework of capitalism, is underscored by the IMF’s updated World Economic Outlook, released earlier this month, which projects that 2015 will be the worst year for economic growth since the height of the recession in 2009.
No comments:
Post a Comment