As pandemic death
toll approaches 200,000, American oligarchs celebrate their wealth
12
September 2020
The United States is passing through a historic social,
economic and political crisis. The death toll from the coronavirus pandemic is
nearing 200,000 and could double by the end of the year. Democratic forms of
rule are breaking down, with the Trump administration intensifying its open
incitement of fascistic violence. Tens of millions are unemployed and face
impoverishment and homelessness. Wildfires are burning out of control on the US
West Coast.
It is impossible to understand any of these processes
outside of the massive levels of social inequality. The United States is an
oligarchy, with a concentration of wealth that is historically unprecedented.
The release of the Forbes 400 billionaire report
gives a sense of this reality. The richest 400
individuals (0.00012 percent of the population)
now possess more than $3 trillion.
The report declares: “Pandemic be damned: America’s 400
richest are worth a record $3.2 trillion, up $240 billion from a year ago,
aided by a stock market that has defied the virus.” The surge in the stock
market, underwritten by the multi-trillion-dollar CARES Act passed in March,
has filled the already overflowing coffers of the super-rich, who now hold
claim to the equivalent of 15 percent of the country’s gross domestic product.
Even the numbers provided by Forbes ,
based
on figures from July 24, are a major
underestimation of the current reality. Since
that time, the wealth of Amazon CEO Jeff
Bezos, the world’s richest person, has shot up
to more than $200 billion, while the wealth of
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has grown to over $100
billion. Bezos’s holdings are three million
times greater than the annual income of the
typical American household.
The staggering level of inequality reflected in the Forbes
list is the central feature of American society, which is defined by the
transfer of obscene and ever larger amounts of wealth from the working class
into the hands of a tiny financial oligarchy through tax cuts, bailouts, the
slashing of wages and the clawing back of pensions and other benefits won by
workers in the struggles of the 20th century.
The latest rise in the billionaires’ wealth is not based on
any exertion of labor but on the inflation of the stock market, with trillions
of dollars in debt from the Federal Reserve and Congress which will be paid off
the backs of the working class. Everything has been subordinated to ensuring
that the Dow Jones and S&P 500 rise to new heights.
It would take the median American, who earns $33,000 per
year, 97 million years to earn as much as is controlled by the wealthiest
Americans. Consider what $3.2 trillion could pay for in a year:
·
In the 2016-17 school year, $739 billion was spent on public
elementary and secondary schools, providing education for 50.8 million students
and employing 3.2 million teachers and another 3.2 million school employees.
·
The Congressional Budget Office projects that the federal
government will spend $1.3 trillion on health care programs this year.
·
Diabetes cost the US economy $327 billion in 2017, with insulin
accounting for $40 billion of this total. The average cost of insulin, critical
for the survival of diabetes patients, is up to $6,000 per year and continues
to rise.
·
According to the US Department of Agriculture, $800 billion was
spent by Americans on food and beverages for consumption at home in 2019. The federal
government provided $60 billion of this in food stamps for the poorest and most
vulnerable to gain access to essential nutrition.
·
The 2018 fire season cost $24 billion, driven by record
devastation including the destruction of the city of Paradise, California. All
told, extreme weather and climate disasters that year cost $91 billion.
Added up, the wealth of just 400 people could pay for an
entire year of public education, health care, nutrition and disaster relief for
millions of Americans. The UN recently reported that 132 million more people
will go hungry worldwide this year due to the pandemic, driving the number of
undernourished close to 1 billion.
Despite the burning need to save millions from
malnourishment and starvation, the World Food Program faces a shortage of $5
billion in its effort to deliver food to those in need. The wealth of the 400
richest people in the US is more than 600 times this amount.
Every element of politics is subordinated to the interests
of this social layer. It is for this reason that the danger of the pandemic was
initially covered up, the bailout of Wall Street was organized and the
back-to-work and back-to-school campaigns were implemented.
The systematic looting of society left the country
vulnerable to such an outbreak. The subordination of health care to the
predatory interests of for-profit health care companies and insurance giants
turned nursing homes for the elderly into death chambers and left nurses and
doctors without the necessary personal protective equipment and other medical
equipment—such as ventilators—needed to treat patients.
The drive of the Trump administration to fascism and the
cultivation of extreme right cannot be understood except in relation to the
class interests of the oligarchy, representing that faction of the ruling class
which seeks to smash outright any sign of opposition from the working class. On
the other side of the coin, the Democrats represent that faction that has
sought to use the politics of race and identity to smother the class struggle
while fighting for access to positions and greater wealth.
As only the latest example, the racially
fixated New York Times published its “Faces of Power” list
this week, noting that too many people in “influential positions” are white.
What difference would it make if everyone one of them was black, Hispanic,
Asian or Native American? In fact, the report found that a majority of police
chiefs in the largest cities are black or Hispanic. Cold comfort for the young
black men who are disproportionately killed by police.
The obsession by upper-middle class academics and
journalists on race and gender is a distraction from the grotesque levels of
wealth that define social relations in American society. This form of politics
has nothing to do with the interests of the working class. Instead, it seeks to
harness anger over racism and social inequality to advance the interests of a
small layer of minorities in the next 9 percent who want a larger piece of the
pie hoarded by the top 1 percent.
At every point, science, reason and human solidarity
collide with the economic interests of the current rulers of society—the
oligarchs, the parasitic masters of finance capital. It is impossible to defend
democratic rights or save lives without confronting this issue.
Mass problems such as the COVID-19 pandemic, increasingly
deadly fires fueled by climate change, and global hunger require mass
solutions. The problems of mankind cannot be resolved without breaking the
stranglehold of the capitalist oligarchy in every country. The wealth must be
expropriated and directed toward meeting social needs. The large corporations
and banks transformed by the working class into democratically controlled
institutions oriented to meeting human need and not private profit.
The social inequality that characterizes capitalist
society—and all the policies that flow from it—is fueling an immense growth of
social anger and working class struggle. These struggles must be organized and
united on the basis of a conscious, revolutionary and socialist program.
ALL BILLIONAIRES ARE GLOBALIST DEMOCRATS. ALL BILLIONAIRES WANT
AMNESTY AND WIDER OPEN BORDERS. ALL BILLIONAIRES WANT NO CAPS ON IMPORTING
CHEAPER FOREIGN WORKER.
Further, the dubious
choice of Kamala Harris as the vice presidential nominee was made solely
to placate and reassure Wall
Street and the wealthy, as she was viewed by them as being very deferential to
the mega-rich class based on her days in California.
Millionaire Democrat Donor Says Joe Biden Will Be Good for
Wall Street
Scott
Olson/Getty Images
15 Sep 2020 395
2:53
A millionaire Democrat donor, who was once listed as a
billionaire by Forbes , says Democrat presidential candidate Joe
Biden will be good for Wall Street in the long run.
Michael
Novogratz, the former Goldman Sachs executive and hedge fund manager, told CNBC in an
interview that while a Biden win against President Donald Trump may initially
drag the market down, Wall Street will stand to benefit.
“I think Biden’s going to win. I
hope Biden wins,” said Novogratz, who now runs an investment firm. “But if he
wins, I think the market will go down, at least initially because he’s going to
raise capital gains tax … he’s going to raise corporate taxes some and he’s
going to raise personal income tax.”
“I think it’s probably
better for the markets [if Biden wins] because the chaos Trump brings
every week, every day just gets tiring,” Novogratz said.
Novogratz donated $200,000
to the Biden Action Fund in June.
Despite endorsements from Sens.
Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Novogratz said Biden and
running mate Sen. Kamala Harris’s (D-CA) platform “sounds a lot more
conservative than the Republican team when you’re talking about their plans.”
“There’s going to be so much
pressure to start redistributing wealth whether it’s paying for college, paying
for loans, if it’s Medicare for All,” Novogratz said. “Those are things the
Democrat Party cares about and there’s going to be pressure and maybe we’re not
going to get all of those but we’ll be heading in that direction. So I don’t
see our deficits miraculously collapsing.”
Biden and
Harris have sought to distance themselves from their large Wall Street backing
in recent weeks. Although Biden blasted Wall Street executives in a town hall
with the AFL-CIO union, a new report
revealed that the former vice president’s campaign has assured Wall
Street donors that his administration will maintain an economic status quo to
their benefit.
This month,
Biden touted Wall
Street’s support for his plan to abolish America’s suburbs by seizing control
of local zoning laws to construct housing developments and multi-family buildings
in neighborhoods. Likewise, Wall Street is fully behind Biden’s
plan to hugely expand legal
immigration levels, beyond already historical highs at 1.2 million green cards
and 1.4 million visa workers a year.
The
Biden-Harris ticket has elated Wall
Street so much that for the first time in a decade, more financial executives
are donating to the Democrat candidates than Republicans, the latest Center for
Responsive Politics analysis reveals .
John Binder is a reporter for
Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder .
Biden’s Billionaires
By Steve McCann
Many years ago, while
participating in a voter registration drive, I came upon a grizzled and
disheveled old man sitting in the overgrown and weed-infested yard of his
paint-starved house calming smoking his pipe. Despite his gruff demeanor,
Ully (Ulysses) was very pleasant and loquacious as we talked for over an hour
on topics ranging from the weather to the innate foibles of mankind. It
turned out that he had to leave school after the fourth grade in order to work
in the fields to help support his family and had toiled in a variety of menial
and labor-intensive jobs ever since. Yet, he had a deep and thorough
insight into human nature. Among his comments about the rich and
ostensibly well-educated was: “All the money in the world cain’t buy a fool a
lick of common sense.”
I was reminded of that
observation after reading an article describing the 131 billionaires who are pouring
millions into the coffers of the Democrat party and Joe Biden’s campaign in
their mindless obsession to defeat President Trump in November. Among the
prominent names are Jeff Skoll, a founder of eBay who has contributed $4.5
million; Laurene Powell Jobs of Apple and owner
of The Atlantic magazine has donated $1.2 million,
and Josh Bekenstein , Chairman of Bain
Capital (co-founded by Mitt Romney), $5 million.
Far more Wall Street
financers have also jumped on the Biden/Democrat party bandwagon than are
supporting Donald Trump, whose policies have overwhelmingly revived the economy
after the stagnation of the Obama-Biden years. The tech billionaires , not content to simply
cough up untold millions in direct political contributions, are also funding
massive voter drives, promoting mail-in balloting, creating divisive partisan
news sites, aiding and designing the Democrat party’s digital campaigns and
unabashedly censoring the social media accounts of the Trump campaign and
innumerable conservatives.
The political party they
are gleefully underwriting in order to oust Trump is no longer the party of the
middle and working class (which is now one and the same) but a two-tier
assemblage in which the prey is sleeping with the predator. The witless
wealthy and socially aware are in bed with the avowed socialists and militant
Marxists. What is holding this marriage of convenience together is a
mutual hatred of Donald Trump and the undoable promises made by Joe Biden and
the Democrat party hierarchy.
In a 2019 meeting with
100 super-wealthy potential donors, Biden assured the gathering that he would
not demonize the rich and would only increase their taxes slightly while
ensuring that their standard of living would not be affected by any of his
policies.
He also
stated: “I’m not Bernie Sanders. I don’t think 500 Billionaires are the reason
why we are in trouble”. Further, he unabashedly emphasized that the
wealthy are not the reason for income inequality and “If I win this
nomination. I won’t let you
down. I promise you .”
Further, the dubious
choice of Kamala Harris as the vice presidential nominee was made solely
to placate and reassure Wall
Street and the wealthy, as she was viewed by them as being very deferential to
the mega-rich class based on her days in California.
When the time came to
deal with the Marxist/socialist wing of the Democrat party’s anti-Trump
coalition, policy commitments, many diametrically opposite of what was promised
the wealthy donors, were also guaranteed with a non-verbal pledge of we won’t
let you down.
The first step was a de
facto party platform. The 110-page Biden-Sanders Manifesto which includes,
among other commitments, a massive job killing $2+ trillion climate agenda to
phase out fossil fuel usage within 15 years, the elimination of cash bail,
redirecting (i.e. cutting) funding for the police, dismantling all border
protections, legalizing virtually all illegal immigrants and massively raising
corporate and individual tax rates on the wealthy. This manifesto is a
socialist screed that would destroy the middle class and permanently neuter the
economy and nation.
An effusive Bernie
Sanders proclaimed to the world that Biden and the Democrats have embraced his
socialist agenda and that Biden would be the most progressive president since FDR.
Sanders exposed not only the behind the scenes reality of today’s Democrat
party but Biden’s figurehead role.
Further confirmation of
the radicalization of the Party came about unexpectedly as the militant Marxist
faction of the Sanders coalition forced the issue. Impatient and
unwilling to wait until after the 3rd of November, Antifa and Black Lives
Matter used the death of George Floyd as a pretext to take to the streets and
begin their long-hoped for revolution. They claimed that rioting,
looting, committing arson and attacking law enforcement was a necessity as this
was a systemically racist country. Yet, they openly demanded immediate
changes rooted in their radical Marxist ideology of class warfare not so-called
systemic racism. As two of their preferred chants and graffiti
slogans “eat the rich” and “abolish capitalism now” confirms.
Biden, the Democrat party
hierarchy as well as virtually all Democrat elected officials refused to
address the violence and those responsible. Thus, they tacitly approved
of the lawlessness and by doing so flashed a green light to continue the
riots. When forced to acknowledge the reality on the streets of the
nation’s cities, they instead blamed Trump, the police, white supremacists and
even the Russians. Due to their spinelessness, the armies of anarchy and
revolution Biden and the Democrats unleashed will never be defeated or mollified
by them.
Considering the vast
dichotomy in the litany of promises made and actions taken, it is inevitable
that either the moneyed elite or the mob of passionate true believers will be
betrayed. There is no middle ground. Who will prevail?
Will it be the elites
whose only weapon is money and fleeting political influence or the passionate
mob whose weapons are unconstrained violence and intimidation? Will it be
those who believe a revolution could never happen here or those who are
currently inciting revolution with the implicit blessing of a major political
party? Will it be those who believe that Biden and the Democrats, if
elected, will be able to forcefully deal with the insurgents or the insurgents
who now know that riots and extortion causes Democrat politicians to cower in
the corner?
Beginning with the French
Revolution and throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, history has recorded
that passionate mobs always prevail when dealing with a feckless ruling class
or party. And the first casualties have inevitably been the wealthy
elites.
I can envision sitting
with my old friend, Ully, and asking him if he thought the wealthy elites,
indiscriminately tossing money at the Democrats for the sole purpose of
defeating President Trump, understood the pitfalls involved. He would
lean back, slowly exhale a puff of smoke from his well-worn pipe and with
uncontrollable anger in his eyes would say: “Nope. Those damn fools ain’t
got a lick of common sense.”
Report:
Joe Biden Promises Wall Street Donors the Status Quo in Private Calls
OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images
8 Sep 2020 343
3:50
Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden is promising Wall
Street donors the economic status quo that they became used to before President
Donald Trump’s administration, according to a report.
An investment banker on Wall Street told the Washington Post that in
private calls with financial executives two months ago, Biden’s campaign
assured them that talk of populist reforms on the campaign trail was nothing
more than talking points.
The Post reports :
When Joe
Biden released economic recommendations two months ago, they included a few
ideas that worried some powerful bankers : allowing banking at
the post office, for example, and having the Federal Reserve guarantee all
Americans a bank account. [Emphasis added]
But in
private calls with Wall Street leaders, the Biden campaign made it clear those
proposals would not be central to Biden’s agenda.
[Emphasis added]
“They basically said, ‘Listen, this is just an exercise to keep
the Warren people happy, and don’t read too much into it,’” said one investment
banker , referring to liberal supporters of
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). The banker, who spoke on the condition of
anonymity to describe private talks, said that message was conveyed on multiple
calls. [Emphasis added]
In a statement to the Post ,
Biden’s campaign downplayed the influence of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) — left populists on trade and economic policy — on
the former vice president’s agenda.
“The Biden-Sanders task forces made recommendations to Vice
President Biden and to the [Democrat National Committee] platform drafting
committee,” Biden spokesperson TJ Ducklo said. “This anonymous source appears
to be confused and uninformed about this very basic distinction.”
The report comes as Biden told AFL-CIO members on Labor Day that
he will be the “strongest labor president” union workers “have ever had.”
“You can be sure you’ll be hearing that word, ‘union,’ plenty of
times when I’m in the White House,” Biden pitched. “The words of a president
matter. Union. We’re going to empower workers and empower unions.”
In the Democrat presidential primary, Biden told a group of rich
Manhattan donors at a private fundraiser that “nothing would change” for them
or their wealthy lifestyles if elected.
“I mean, we may not want to demonize anybody who has made
money,” Biden said at the
June 2019 fundraiser.
“The truth of the matter is, you all, you all know, you all know
in your gut what has to be done. We can disagree in the margins but the truth of
the matter is it’s all within our wheelhouse and nobody has to be punished,”
Biden said. “No one’s standard of living will change, nothing would
fundamentally change.”
Like failed Democrat
presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, Biden has enjoyed a cozy relationship
with Wall Street executives, along with his running mate Sen. Kamala Harris
(D-CA).
Most recently, Biden touted Wall Street’s
support for his plan to abolish America’s suburbs by seizing control of local
zoning laws to construct housing developments and multi-family buildings in
neighborhoods. Likewise, Wall Street is fully behind Biden’s plan
to hugely expand legal
immigration levels, beyond already historical highs at 1.2 million green cards
and 1.4 million visa workers a year.
The Biden-Harris ticket has elated Wall Street
so much that for the first time in a decade, more financial executives are
donating to the Democrat candidates than Republicans, the latest Center for
Responsive Politics analysis reveals .
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on
Twitter at @JxhnBinder .
As Bloomberg
pledges $100 million, Wall Street boosts Biden campaign
By
Patrick Martin
15 September 2020
Billionaire Michael Bloomberg has
pledged to spend at least $100 million to support the campaign of Democratic
presidential candidate Joe Biden in Florida. This announcement Sunday is only
the largest pledge of support from the financial oligarchy for the Democratic
campaign.
Bloomberg aide Kevin Sheekey said
the pledge of virtually unlimited financial backing to Biden in Florida, the
most critical “battleground” state in the 2020 election, “will allow campaign
resources and other Democratic resources to be used in other states, in
particular the state of Pennsylvania.”
Florida has 29 electoral votes,
the most of any closely contested state, following California with 55,
overwhelmingly Democratic, and Texas with 38, leaning Republican. New York
state, also with 29 electoral votes, is heavily Democratic.
Only once in the last 60
years—Bill Clinton in 1992—has a candidate won the presidency while losing
Florida. The last Republican to lose Florida and still win the White House was
Calvin Coolidge in 1924, when the state was lightly populated swampland.
Early voting begins in Florida
September 24, and Bloomberg’s money will pay for massive campaign advertising
on behalf of Biden, in both English and Spanish. Campaign officials said the
funds would be devoted almost entirely to television and digital ads.
Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg
stands for the pledge of allegiance during a ceremony on Sept. 11, 2020, in New
York. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)
Even before the Bloomberg
commitment, the Biden campaign and supporting Democratic groups had outspent
Trump and the Republicans by $42 million to $32 million. The flood of cash from
the billionaire media mogul will give the Democrats a three- or four-to-one
advantage over the final seven weeks of the campaign.
The efficacy of Bloomberg’s huge
financial commitment is open to question. The media billionaire spent $1
billion (a mere one-fiftieth of his gargantuan personal fortune) on his own
pursuit of the Democratic presidential nomination. He launched his campaign at
a time when he believed Biden’s candidacy was near its demise, hoping that his
money might forestall the nomination of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.
The sudden revival of Biden’s
campaign with his victory in South Carolina in February and then in the Super
Tuesday primaries on March 3 led Bloomberg to abandon his own efforts and
endorse the former vice president, since their right-wing views on a range of
topics, and particularly on foreign policy, were virtually identical.
Since then, Bloomberg has
transferred $20 million from his abortive presidential campaign to the
Democratic National Committee, as well as pumping in another $120 million to
local, state and congressional campaigns, making him by far the largest single
backer of the Democratic Party.
Florida is only the most glaring
example of the general trend in the 2020 election, in which the financial
oligarchy and Wall Street have indicated a distinct preference for Biden and
backed it up with heavy financial commitments.
During August, the Biden campaign
broke all records for fundraising in a single month, raking in $365 million,
nearly double the previous record of $203 million set by the campaign of Barack
Obama in September 2008, and more than Hillary Clinton and Trump combined to
raise, in August 2016, $233 million. The Trump campaign also broke the Obama
record, but its total of $210 million in August was far behind the pace set by
the Democrats.
Approximately $205 million of the
$365 million came through online donations, including 1.5 million new donors.
This is more an indication of the widespread hostility to Trump among millions
of working-class and middle-class people than any groundswell of support for
Biden, who personifies the corrupt US political establishment, having spent 36
years in the Senate before his eight years as Obama’s vice president.
That means that $160 million—a
near-record amount by itself—was raised through large donations from wealthy
supporters of the Democratic Party. While Trump continues to rake in the lion’s
share of support from industries such as oil and gas, mining and real estate,
Biden has collected the bulk of financial backing from the banks, hedge funds
and insurance industry.
Under rules set by the Federal
Election Commission, a wealthy donor can now give as much as $830,600 to
support a presidential candidate, routing much of the money through federal and
state party committees rather than the candidate’s own campaign.
The result of the disparity in
fundraising throughout the summer is that the Democratic presidential campaign
has now caught up with and even surpassed Trump’s war chest. The Trump
reelection campaign, despite raising an unprecedented $1.1 billion, has less
cash on hand for the fall than the Biden campaign. According to press accounts,
more than one-third of the money raised by the Trump campaign was used to pay
the expenses of fundraising itself.
There
were several reports last week that the Trump campaign was experiencing a “cash
crunch,” and was unable to sustain advertising in all 15 of the so-called
battleground states. Both the Washington
Post and Bloomberg News reported that Trump campaign manager
Bill Stepien has halted television advertising in Michigan and Pennsylvania at
least temporarily, and that Biden was outspending Trump in nearly every closely
contested state.
Stepien replaced Brad Parscale as
campaign manager in July, at least in part because of concerns that Parscale
had squandered Trump’s substantial initial fundraising advantage.
According to the media tracking
firm Advertising Analytics, the Biden campaign spent $17 million in television
and digital advertising in nine battleground states during the week of
September 3, compared to $4 million by the Trump campaign.
The Clinton campaign outspent
Trump by similar margins in 2016, but Trump campaign aides had boasted they
would not face such a deficit in 2020. Trump has hinted he would seek to make
up the difference from his personal fortune, but there has been no sign yet of
any direct outlay by the billionaire to back his own campaign.
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