Obama Seeks Brother of "Chicago Mob Boss" for Top White House Post
The roaches and con-artist, fake journalist on cable news are
all lying about William Daley being all this and all that, this man is an open borders,
down with America, free trade globalist.
MSNBC and Gretta "the Scientology" Van Susteren from Fox News
are knowingly deceiving the public about D. Issa & his letter to
"business owners"=which they made into such a BIG DAM DEAL, but no
one says anything when Barrack Hussein Obama, comes around with all of these
shady bankers, hedge fund managers and Wall St. Tycoons, which he puts in his
cabinet. All of Obama's meeting with
Wall Street asking, "What can I do for you?" is never something
covered by Keith Oberman or Rachel Maddow.
(Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama is considering naming
William Daley, a JPMorgan Chase & Co. executive and former U.S. Commerce
secretary, to a high-level administration post, possibly White House chief of
staff, people familiar with the matter said.
BOOK
Obamanomics: How Barack Obama Is Bankrupting You and
Enriching His Wall Street Friends, Corporate Lobbyists, and Union Bosses
BY TIMOTHY P CARNEY
Editorial Reviews
Obama Is Making You Poorer—But Who’s Getting Rich?
Goldman Sachs, GE, Pfizer, the United Auto Workers—the same
“special interests” Barack Obama was supposed to chase from the temple—are
profiting handsomely from Obama’s Big Government policies that crush taxpayers,
small businesses, and consumers. In Obamanomics, investigative reporter Timothy
P. Carney digs up the dirt the mainstream media ignores and the White House
wishes you wouldn’t see. Rather than Hope and Change, Obama is delivering
corporate socialism to America, all while claiming he’s battling corporate
America. It’s corporate welfare and regulatory robbery—it’s Obamanomics.
Congressman Ron Paul says, “Every libertarian and free-market
conservative needs to read Obamanomics.” And Johan Goldberg, columnist and
bestselling author says, “Obamanomics is conservative muckraking at its best
and an indispensable field guide to the Obama years.”
If you’ve wondered what’s happening to America, as the
federal government swallows up the financial sector, the auto industry, and
healthcare, and enacts deficit exploding “stimulus packages,” this book makes
it all clear—it’s a big scam. Ultimately, Obamanomics boils down to this:
every time government gets bigger, somebody’s getting rich, and those
somebodies are friends of Barack. This book names the names—and it will
make your blood boil.
Goldman Sachs, GE, Pfizer, the United Auto Workers—the same
“special interests” Barack Obama was supposed to chase from the temple—are
profiting handsomely from Obama’s Big Government policies that crush taxpayers,
small businesses, and consumers.
Investigative reporter Timothy P. Carney digs up the dirt the
mainstream media ignores and the White House wishes you wouldn’t see. Rather
than Hope and Change, Obama is delivering corporate socialism to America, all
while claiming he’s battling corporate America. It’s corporate welfare and
regulatory robbery—it’s Obamanomics. In this explosive book, Carney reveals:
* The Great Health Care Scam—Obama’s backroom deals with drug
companies spell corporate profits and more government control
* The Global Warming Hoax—Obama has bought off industries
with a pork-filled bill that will drain your wallet for Al Gore’s agenda
* Obama and Wall Street—“Change” means more bailouts and a
heavy Goldman Sachs presence in the West Wing (including Rahm Emanuel)
* Stimulating K Street—The largest spending bill in history
gave pork to the well-connected and created a feeding frenzy for lobbyists
* How the GOP needs to change its tune—drastically—to battle
Obamanomics
Praise for Obamanomics
“The notion that ‘big business’ is on the side of the free
market is one of progressivism’s most valuable myths. It allows them to
demonize corporations by day and get in bed with them by night. Obamanomics is
conservative muckraking at its best. It reveals how President Obama is
exploiting the big business mythology to undermine the free market and stick it
to entrepreneurs, taxpayers, and consumers. It’s an indispensable field guide
to the Obama years.”
—Jonha Goldberg, LA Times columnist and best-selling author
“‘Every time government gets bigger, somebody’s getting
rich.’ With this astute observation, Tim Carney begins his task of laying bare
the Obama administration’s corporatist governing strategy, hidden behind the
president’s populist veneer. This meticulously researched book is a must-read
for anyone who wants to understand how Washington really works.”
—David Freddoso, best-selling author of The Case Against
Barack Obama
“Every libertarian and free-market conservative who still
believes that large corporations are trusted allies in the battle for economic
liberty needs to read this book, as does every well-meaning liberal who
believes that expansions of the welfare-regulatory state are done to benefit
the common people.”
—Congressman Ron Paul
“It’s understandable for critics to condemn President Obama
for his ‘socialism.’ But as Tim Carney shows, the real situation is at once
more subtle and more sinister. Obamanomics favors big business while
disproportionately punishing everyone else. So-called progressives are too
clueless to notice, as usual, which is why we have Tim Carney and this book.”
—Thomas E. Woods, Jr., best-selling author of Meltdown and
The Politically Incorrect Guide™ to American History
· Hardcover: 256 pages
· Publisher: Regnery Press (November 30,
2009)
· Language: English
· ISBN-10: 1596986123
· ISBN-13: 978-1596986121
The Obamas tackle climate change and wealth inequality
In a remarkable commitment to their
tireless fight against climate change and wealth inequality, Barack and
Michelle Obama reportedly are purchasing a magnificent $15-million oceanfront mansion in Martha’s Vineyard, presumably as
a much-needed retreat to supplement the $9-million mansion they already own in
one of the most exclusive areas of the nation’s capitol.
A fierce opponent of fossil fuels and
wealth inequality, the former president has harshly criticized rich people for
the oversized, carbon-gluttonous houses they buy. On April 25, 2010, the
president who would become fabulously wealthy in retirement scolded Wall Street CEOs with this admonition:
I do think at
a certain point you’ve made enough money.
His views about the sin of making too much
money haven’t changed. During a speech last year in South Africa, this
shining example of environmental stewardship and unparalleled concern for the
poor spoke passionately about the unfairness of some people having more money
than others in blasting rich people for their excessively lavish lifestyles:
There’s only
so much you can eat; there’s only so big a house you can have; there’s only so
many nice trips you can take. I mean, it’s enough.
That direct quote came from the lips of a
man who, along with his wife, is sitting atop a nest egg estimated at a
meager $135 million. But don’t feel sorry for them, because there’s much more
to come: with money barreling their way like a runaway train, the concerned
couple is rapidly becoming a billion-dollar brand.
Protecting
the planet: During his
first full day in the White House, President Obama was photographed without his
suit jacket. Senior advisor David Axelrod explained: “He’s from Hawaii,
okay? He likes it warm. You could grow orchids in there.”
While campaigning, Obama vowed to exhibit environmental leadership if elected: “We can’t drive our
SUV’s and eat as much as we want and keep our thermostats set at 72 degrees.
That’s not leadership. That’s not going to happen [with me].”
In decreeing that rich people make too
much money and that global warming is an imminent threat to our very survival,
this ultra-wealthy man and his ultra-wealthy wife decided to indulge themselves
in another opulent mansion, this one sitting on 29 oceanfront acres on one of
the most exclusive islands in the world. While homeless people are
sleeping on the streets and our planet is being destroyed by CO2, the Obamas
are living large, a pitifully small reward for two remarkable people who bend
over backwards to show leadership in the fight against climate change and
wealth inequality.
An electrical engineering graduate of
Georgia Tech and now retired, John Eidson is a freelance writer in
Atlanta. American
Thinker recently published related article of his titled "Harrison Ford, Climate Hypocrite" and "A $600 fill-up?"
HE OBOMBS HAVE ALWAYS
LIVED LIKE THE 1% WHOM THEY SERVED AND GROVELED AT THE FEET OF.
Nolte:
Michelle Obama Condemns ‘White Flight’ After Purchasing Home in Martha’s
Vineyard
Gerardo Mora/Getty Images
JOHN NOLTE
31 Oct 2019113
5:28
Former first lady Michelle Obama condemned white
people for fleeing minority neighborhoods just weeks after she and her
husband purchased a $15
million estate in Martha’s Vineyard.
Martha’s
Vineyard is almost as white as an Elizabeth Warren rally.
Martha’s
Vineyard is whiter than my subdivision here in rural North Carolina.
Martha’s
Vineyard is whiter than MSNBC.
During a
Tuesday appearance at the Obama Foundation Summit in Chicago, she said, “But
unbeknownst to us, we grew up in the period — as I write — called ‘white
flight.’ That as families like ours, upstanding families like ours … As we
moved in, white folks moved out because they were afraid of what our families
represented.”
“And I
always stop there when I talk about this out in the world because, you know, I
want to remind white folks that y’all were running from us.” She went on, “This
family with all the values that you’ve read about. You were running from us.
And you’re still running, because we’re no different than the immigrant families
that are moving in … the families that are coming from other places to try to
do better.”
Did I mention that Michelle and
Barry just purchased a $15 million estate in Martha’s Vineyard, which is 95
percent white?
Oh, and did I mention the Obamas own
a second home, an $8 million mansion, in the exclusive DC neighborhood of Kalorama, which is
80 percent white and just four percent black.
Oh, and did I mention the Obamas
have a third home, a $5.3 million mansion, in Rancho Mirage, California, which
is 89 percent white and just 2.6 percent black.
Oh, sure, the Obamas still own their
Chicago home in Hyde Park, which is at least 26 percent black. But you would
think they could do better than 26 percent!
I like
Michelle Obama. I have always liked Michelle Obama. I’ve never said an unkind
word about her, quite the opposite, and while I find her politics ignorant, she
was a terrific first lady.
But this
is nuts…
Not only
is she attacking white people for seeking a better standard of living, which I
can assure you (as I will explain below) has little to do with racism, she is
also attacking whites after she herself “fled” to 95 percent white Martha’s
Vineyard (I will never stop repeating this point) and two other homes in areas where
the black population is less than 5 percent.
Worse
still, she is putting white people in a position where they can never win,
where they are damned if they do or don’t, where they are always and forever
racist.
If white
people move out of a black neighborhood, they’re racists engaging in white
flight.
But…
And this
is important…
If white
people move into a minority neighborhood, they are also racists for either
engaging in gentrification — which is just another form of cultural genocide,
donchaknow — or cultural appropriation.
Now I’m
going to tell you a little something about white flight, from my own
experience…
Because I
was poor, back in the mid-eighties, I lived in the inner-city of Milwaukee for
two years. My wife and I did not flee (my wife is not white, by the way)
because of “icky minorities” (did I mention my wife is not white?), we fled
because it was not safe to live there. It was never safe. Over those two years,
we had been mugged, robbed, and had our car stolen. That’s why we left.
And when
we fled, it was to a community that was still not as white as *ahem* Martha’s
Vineyard.
In 2002,
my wife and I moved to California for nine years and lived in an East Los
Angeles neighborhood that was just four percent white. For nearly a decade, I was
outnumbered 96-4 and never gave it a thought because I was not outnumbered. A
darker skin tone, an accent, and different religious traditions did not make my
neighbors any less American than me, and when I am among Americans I am among
my own. We left because predominantly white leftists are destroying California.
Then
there’s my poor dad…
He moved
to the Northside of Milwaukee in 1980, and spent decades, a lot of money, and a
ton of sweat, remodeling his home, building a garage, and paying that home off.
He intended to retire there. And yes, there were black people in his
neighborhood when he moved in, and for most of his adult life he worked in
predominantly black institutions. He never intended to move, and held on for as
long as he could… He didn’t flee because of black people. He was not forced to
start all over at age 67 because he suddenly decided he didn’t like blacks. He
left because he was robbed, because gangs started tagging his house and garage,
because it was no longer safe to live there.
You know…
If we’re
going to shame people for such things, what does it say to black people when
other black people, especially the first black president and his family, reject
them? What the hell kind of message is this to send to black Americans,
especially when the Obamas can afford the security to live safely in any
neighborhood they choose?
And if
the Obamas wanted to live in Southern California, why choose Rancho Mirage over
Ladera Heights, the Black Beverly Hills, a predominantly black neighborhood as
swank as any in America?
Shame on
Michelle and Barack Obama. They have the money and profile to make an important
statement on this issue, but they obviously prefer to live in overwhelmingly
white neighborhoods.
Diamond Life: Michelle Obama rents out $23-million Hollywood
Hills mansion for a night
Apparently,
a hotel, even a luxury hotel, was not good enough.
Former
first lady Michelle Obama had to go big, renting out a $23-million Hollywood
Hills mansion for...a night. The New York Post has the pictures of it here. Several news
accounts explained it as possibly a rental to try and buy, something most
home-buyers don't get to do. Whether she actually paid is also a big
question mark, and if so, whether she paid market value (which would have
cost more than a fancy hotel) or received her night there a
"gift," which presents its own ethics problems.
The Shark House, which is located in the 9200
block of Swallow Drive, is thus named due to its open air shark aquarium. It
also has a full spa, a humidor room, movie theater and walk-in wine room.
It's on the market, currently listed for a cool
$22.9 million.
A source told TMZ the Obamas may be looking at
real estate in the Hollywood Hills area, but that was not confirmed.
If
they're in the market to buy that, they've got a lot more money than the press
is reporting. We know they're loaded. But not that
loaded. Not Louis XIV loaded, which is about the range for this
sort of place. Or is it a sweetheart deal in the works we're talking
about? Maybe they'll end up buying it for "a
dollar." Don't know yet, but neither possibility makes them
look good.
It's
all part and parcel of the Obamas' long, luxurious post-presidency,
a nonstop vacay that costs taxpayers millions. It's as though
we're financing kings now, not retired presidents. For a while
there, the Obamas were jetting around with billionaires and
staying on private islands. Then they bought that expensive Kalorama
mansion in Washington, D.C., all supposedly for the benefit of their daughter
Sasha, who was finishing high school. Surprise, surprise, it
actually seems to primarily serve as a political watch post for longtime Obama
loyalist and consigliere Valerie Jarrett. They did some audience
tours and hung out with more billionaires. There were those
lucrative Goldman Sachs speeches by the celebrity
president (which certainly weren't based on economics anyone would want to
trade on).
And
all of this has been financed by taxpayers, who pay his $207,000 pension, along with bennies
such as unlimited air travel, transition expenses, office expenses,
presidential library funds, and lifetime Secret Service detail.
Apparently,
to the Obamas, there's no reaching that "certain point" at which
"you've made enough money."
For
Michelle, just call her "Mooch." Is this really what an
ex-presidency is supposed to be like? Hitting the money
jackpot? What he makes on his own is his own business (subject to
bribery laws), but taxpayers shouldn't be financing this level
of movie-star billionaire luxe life. Maybe it's time for some
pension reform from Congress. Would be quite a thing to see that
idea presented to the House's ruling Democrats.
OBAMAnomics:
Billionaire
Class Enjoys 15X the Wage Growth of American Working Class
The
billionaire class — the country’s top 0.01 percent of earners — have enjoyed
more than 15 times as much wage growth as America’s working and middle class
since 1979, new wage data reveals.
Between 1979 and 2017, the wages of the bottom 90 percent — the
country’s working and lower middle class — have grown by only about 22 percent,
Economic Policy Institute (EPI) researchers find.
Compare that small wage
increase over nearly four decades to the booming wage growth of America’s top
one percent, who have seen their wages grow more than 155 percent during the
same period.
The top 0.01 percent — the
country’s billionaire class — saw their wages grow by more than 343
percent in the last four decades, more than 15 times the wage growth of the
bottom 90 percent of Americans.
In 1979, America’s working
class was earning on average about $29,600 a year. Fast forward to 2017, and
the same bottom 90 percent of Americans are earning only about $6,600 more
annually.
The almost four decades of wage
stagnation among the country’s working and middle class comes as the national
immigration policy has allowed for the admission of more than 1.5 million
mostly low-skilled immigrants every year.
In the last decade, alone, the U.S. admitted ten million legal
immigrants, forcing American workers to compete against a growing population of
low-wage workers. Meanwhile, employers are able to reduce wages and drive up
their profit margins thanks to the annual low-skilled immigration scheme.
The Washington, DC-imposed mass immigration policy
is a boon to corporate executives, Wall Street, big business, and multinational
conglomerates as every one percent increase in the immigrant composition of an
occupation’s labor force reduces Americans’ hourly wages
by 0.4 percent. Every one percent increase in the immigrant workforce reduces
Americans’ overall wages by 0.8 percent.
Mass immigration has come at
the expense of America’s working and middle class, which has suffered from poor
job growth, stagnant wages, and increased public costs to offset the
importation of millions of low-skilled foreign nationals.
Four million young Americans enter the workforce every year, but
their job opportunities are further diminished as the U.S. imports roughly two
new foreign workers for every four American workers who enter the workforce.
Even though researchers say 30 percent of the workforce could lose their jobs due to
automation by 2030, the U.S. has not stopped importing more than a million
foreign nationals every year.
For blue-collar American workers, mass immigration has not only
kept wages down but in many cases decreased wages, as Breitbart News reported. Meanwhile, the U.S. continues
importing more foreign nationals with whom working-class Americans are
forced to compete. In 2016, the U.S. brought in about 1.8 million
mostly low-skilled immigrants.
Study: Elite Zip Codes
Thrived in Obama Recovery, Rural America Left Behind
4:49
Wealthy
cities and elite zip codes thrived under the slow-moving economic recovery of
President Obama while rural American communities were left behind, a study
reveals.
The Economic Innovation Group research, highlighted by Axios, details the massive
economic inequality between the country’s coastal city elites and middle America’s
working class between the Great Recession in 2007 and Obama’s economic recovery
in 2016.
Between 2007 and 2016, the
number of residents living in elite zip codes grew by more than ten million,
with an overwhelming faction of that population growth being driven by mass
immigration where the U.S. imports more than 1.5 million illegal and legal
immigrants annually.
The booming 44.5 million immigrant populations are concentrated mostly in the country’s
major cities like Los Angeles, California, Miami Florida, and New York City,
New York. The rapidly growing U.S. population — driven by immigration — is set
to hit 404 millionby 2060, a boon for real estate
developers, wealthy investors, and corporations, all of which benefit greatly
from dense populations and a flooded labor market.
The economic study found that
while the population grew in wealthy cities, America’s rural population fell by
nearly 3.5 million residents.
Likewise, by 2016, elite zip
codes had a surplus of 3.6 million jobs, which is more than the combined bottom
80 percent of American zip codes. While it only took about five years for
wealthy cities to replace the jobs lost by the recession, it took “at risk”
regions of the country a decade to recover, and “distressed” U.S. communities
are “unlikely ever to recover on current trendlines,” the report predicts.
A map included in the research
shows how rich, coastal metropolises have boomed economically while entire
portions of middle America have been left behind as job and business gains
remain concentrated at the top of the income ladder.
Economic growth among the
country’s middle-class counties and middle-class zip codes has considerably
trailed national economic growth, the study found.
For example, between 2012 and
2016, there were 4.4 percent more business establishments in the country as a
whole. That growth was less than two percent in the median zip code and there
was close to no growth in the median county.
The same can be said of employment
growth, where U.S. employment grew by about 9.3 percent from 2012 to 2016. In
the median zip code, though, employment grew by only 5.5 percent and in the
median county, employment grew by less than four percent.
“Nearly three in every five
large counties added businesses on net over the period, compared to only one in
every five small one,” the report concluded.
Elite zip codes added more
business establishments during Obama’s economic recovery, between 2012 and
2016, than the entire bottom 80 percent of zip codes combined. For instance,
while more than 180,000 businesses have been added to rich zip codes, the
country’s bottom tier has lost more than 13,000 businesses even after the
economic recovery.
The gutting of the American manufacturing base, through free
trade, has been a driving catalyst for the collapse of the
white working class and black Americans. Simultaneously, the outsourcing of the
economy has brought major wealth to corporations, tech conglomerates, and Wall
Street.
The dramatic decline of U.S. manufacturing at the hands of free
trade—where more than 3.4 million American jobs have been
lost solely due to free trade with China, not including the American jobs lost
due to agreements like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the
United States-Korea Free Trade Agreement (KORUS)—has coincided with growing
wage inequality for white and black Americans, a growing number of single mother
households, a drop in U.S. marriage rates, a general stagnation of
working and middle class wages, and specifically, increased black American
unemployment.
“So, the loss of manufacturing
work since 1960 represents a steady decline in relatively high-paying jobs for
less-educated workers,” recent research from economist Eric D. Gould has
noted.
Fast-forward to the modern economy and the wage trend has been
the opposite of what it was during the peak of manufacturing in the U.S. An
Economic Policy Institute studyfound this year that been 2009 and 2015, the top one
percent of American families earned about 26 times as much income as the
bottom 99 percent of Americans.
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
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.
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.
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.
The Triumph of Injustice, by Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman: How tax cuts for the rich fuel inequality
The Triumph of Injustice, by economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman (2019, W. W. Norton), documents how governments have systematically allowed the wealthy to dodge taxes, and then cut corporate tax rates in the name of “closing tax loopholes,” helping to fuel runaway inequality.
Saez and Zucman are world-renowned experts in the economics of social inequality. In recent years, they have turned their attention to documenting the prevalence of tax evasion by the super-rich. The results of this research are condensed into a 232-page volume.
The two economists demonstrate that for the first time in modern US history, the very rich in 2018 paid a lower percentage of their income in taxes than the average worker, and that the US tax system, far from being progressive, as commonly claimed, is regressive.
The second half of the book consists of policy proposals. Saez and Zucman advocate a form of capitalist reformism similar to that of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, who consulted the two economists in formulating portions of her program.
We do not share the view of Saez and Zucman that social inequality can be fought outside of a struggle against the capitalist social order. But their presentation of the growth of social inequality in the United States and the role that tax policy has played is vital and should be widely read.
The book begins with a description of the scale of social inequality in the United States:
In 1980, the top 1 percent earned a bit more than 10 percent of the nation’s income, before government taxes and transfers, while the bottom 50 percent share was around 20 percent. Today, it’s almost the opposite: the top 1 percent captures more than 20 percent of national income and the working class barely 12 percent. In other words, the 1 percent earns almost twice as much income as the entire working class population, a group fifty times larger demographically. And the increase in the share of the pie going to 2.4 million adults has been similar in magnitude to the loss suffered by more than 100 million Americans.
The book proceeds to describe the incomes of the various sections of American society:
Let’s start with the working class, the 122 million adults in the lower half of the income pyramid. For them, the average income is $18,500 before taxes and transfers in 2019. Yes, you are reading this correctly: half of the US adult population lives on an annual income of $18,500.
This contrasts sharply with the lives of the affluent upper-middle class—those in the 90th to 91st percentile:
With an average income of $220,000 and everything that goes with it—spacious suburban houses, expensive private schools for their children, well-funded pensions, and good health insurance—they are not struggling.
At the top are the 2.4 million wealthiest people in the United States, part of the top 1 percent, “whose members make $1.5 million in income a year on average.”
Saez and Zucman argue that this level of social inequality is the outcome of deliberate policy choices on the part of lawmakers. They describe how for decades, successive administrations have slashed taxes on the wealthy and corporations, leading to a massive increase in social inequality.
They note that “confiscatory” taxes levied on the very wealthy under the New Deal helped rein in the social inequality of the 1920s, leading to a more equitable distribution of wealth in the middle of the 20th century:
From 1930 to 1980, the top marginal income tax rate in the United States averaged 78 percent. This top rate reached as much as 91 percent from 1951 to 1963. Large bequests were taxed at quasi-confiscatory rates during the middle of the twentieth century, with rates nearing 80 percent from 1941 to 1976 for the wealthiest Americans.
They continue:
In 1970, the richest Americans paid, all taxes included, more than 50 percent of their income in taxes, twice as much as working-class individuals. In 2018, following the Trump tax reform, and for the first time in the last hundred years, billionaires have paid less than steel workers, schoolteachers, and retirees.
In fact,
The wealthy have seen their taxes rolled back to levels last seen in the 1910s, when the government was only a quarter of the size it is today.
They argue that, more and more, the capitalist class is being exempted from taxation:
The explosive cocktail that is undermining America’s system of taxation is simple: capital income, in varying degrees, is becoming tax-free.
Such a social order has much in common with the tax collection practices of the French monarchy, which are described in detail:
French kings pampered the affluent and bludgeoned the populace. France had an income tax (taille), whose main claim to fame was that it exempted almost all privileged groups: the aristocracy, the clergy, judges, professors, doctors, the residents of big cities, including Paris, and, of course, the tax collectors themselves—known as the fermiers généraux (tax farmers). The most destitute members of society, at the same time, were heavily hit by salt duties—the dreaded gabelle—and sprawling levies (entrées and octrois) on the commodities entering the cities, including food, beverages, and building materials.
The perpetual lowering of taxes on the wealthy has had a symbiotic relationship with the systematic toleration of tax evasion by the rich on the part of the US government, which is particularly evident in the effective elimination of the estate tax.
While estate and gift tax revenues amounted to 0.20 percent of household net wealth in the early 1970s, since 2010 they have barely reached 0.03 percent–0.04 percent annually—a reduction by a factor of more than five.
The authors provide further documentation of this “collapse in enforcement:”
In 1975, the IRS audited 65 percent of the 29,000 largest estate tax returns filed in 1974. By 2018, only 8.6 percent of the 34,000 estate tax returns filed in 2017 were examined.The capitulation has been so severe that if we take seriously the wealth reported on estate tax returns nowadays, it looks like rich people are either almost nonexistent in America or that they never die.
Saez and Zucman document the extent to which US corporations dodge taxes by booking profits in offshore tax havens.
Today, close to 60 percent of the—large and rising—amount of profits made by US multinationals abroad are booked in low-tax countries. Where exactly? Primarily in Ireland and Bermuda.
They explain how a massive industry exists to help companies evade taxes, making clear that most of these tax dodges are illegal because US law prohibits any investment decision whose sole aim is to evade taxes.
For decades, systematic tax evasion by major corporations was used as a pretext for lowering corporate tax rates, in the name of supposedly “closing loopholes.” The claim that “closing loopholes” would compensate for lost tax revenues resulting from lower corporate tax rates, while supposedly accelerating economic growth, has constituted the bipartisan consensus on tax policy, and remains so to this day. The authors write:
For the majority of the nation’s political, economic, and intellectual elites, slashing the corporate tax rate was the right thing to do. During his presidency, Barack Obama had advocated in favor of reducing it to 28 percent, with a lower rate of 25 percent for manufacturers.
The capstone of this was Trump’s 2018 tax bill, which slashed the corporate income tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent. This was part of an international process:
As Trump’s bill passed, French president Emmanuel Macron vowed to cut the corporate tax from 33 percent to 25 percent between 2018 and 2022. The United Kingdom was ahead of the curve: it had started slashing its rate under Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown in 2008 and was aiming for 17 percent in 2020. On that issue, the Browns, Macrons, and Trumps of the world agree.
Having presented this analysis, Saez and Zucman explain what they propose to do about it. They argue for increasing taxes on the wealthy, including a tax on wealth, increasing the top income tax bracket, and raising the corporate tax rate.
While taxation would be used broadly to redistribute income to the level of inequality that existed in the 1930s, the vast bulk of the cost of constructing a social welfare state would be borne by an effective tax increase on working people.
The majority of tax revenue would be raised with a flat “national income tax,” affecting workers and capitalists alike. This “national income tax,” falling disproportionately on workers, would then be used to finance a government-run health insurance program, public child care and free education.
The authors write:
The good news is that we can fix tax injustice, right now. There is nothing inherent in globalization that destroys our ability to tax big companies and the wealthy. The choice is ours…When it comes to the future of taxation, everything is possible. From the disappearance of the income tax—a plausible outcome if the trend of the last four decades is sustained—to levels of progressivity never seen before, there is an infinity of possible futures ahead of us.
But this “infinity of possible futures” does not include the overthrow of capitalism. Saez and Zucman argue on the basis of a premise which they never state, much less seek to defend: that private ownership of the means of production should be continued and maintained.
They want to treat the symptom (inequality) of the disease (capitalism) without attempting to argue against those who say that the symptom cannot be treated outside of eradicating the disease.
The word “capitalism” appears only twice throughout the book. This is not surprising, because the volume treats the capitalist socioeconomic order as effectively the fixed basis of analysis.
Saez and Zucman never attempt to answer the most important question: What happens when the wealthy resist paying more in taxes? What political means are required to end inequality?
The unstated premise is that this change can be carried out through the Democratic Party, including candidates such as Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders who advocate policies similar to those of the authors.
But since Saez and Zucman don’t argue for this course of action, they don’t have to deal with the myriad problems that arise from it. How will the Democrats, the party that first cut taxes on the rich (under Johnson) and presided over the deregulation of Wall Street (under Clinton), then bailed out the banks (Obama), be made into the instrument of, as the authors call it, “confiscatory” taxation?
Within the book’s analytical framework, if governments reduced taxes on the rich, it was because opinions changed. If opinions can be changed back, then governments can undo the policies that led to the growth of inequality.
Except, there must have been some reason that opinions changed. Saez and Zucman do not attempt to root the phenomenal processes they discuss in broader historical changes.
What, after all, is the relationship between the fact that the 20th century was viewed as the so-called “American century,” based on American global economic hegemony, and the socially redistributive character of the New Deal, as well as the “confiscatory” tax policy of Roosevelt and Eisenhower? Leon Trotsky did not beat around the bush when he declared, “America’s wealth permits Roosevelt his experiments.”
The fact is that a return to the New Deal is simply not possible. The financial oligarchy would fight such a plan tooth and nail. There is no wing of the ruling elite, as there was in Roosevelt’s day, which argues that US capitalism should reduce social inequality to head off revolution.
There is, of course, is an enormous constituency for social redistribution: the working class. But its struggles will be animated in the coming period not by a desire to put patches on capitalism, but to do away with it altogether.
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