“We must not be naïve -- the Ukrainian
company Burisma
Holding Limited did not hire a druggie like Hunter Biden, the
son of the Vice President of the United States Joe Biden, for his
expertise or business acumen.”
ALEXANDER G. MARKOVSKY
How to Understand Joe Biden’s Ukrainian Connection
By Alexander G. Markovsky
Joe Biden’s shenanigans
in Ukraine need to be understood in the context of the business and political
culture of Ukraine and the former Soviet bloc. We must
not be naïve -- the Ukrainian company Burisma Holding
Limited did not hire a druggie like Hunter Biden, the son of the Vice
President of the United States Joe Biden, for
his expertise or business acumen. It did not hire obscure Devon Archer, a managing partner of Rosemont Seneca
Partners, a $2.4 billion private equity firm co-owned by the stepson of John
Kerry Christopher Heinz, for his administrative genius, either.
Burisma expected it
was hiring the principals, Joe Biden and John Kerry. Hunter Biden and Devon Archer were just bagmen.
The arrangement is called
“ крыша ,” which translates as “roof” in Russian. It means
patronage and protection in exchange for an agreed monthly payment, often
payable to a third party to ensure deniability. It is important to point
out that “roof” is not just criminal jargon, it is a contract. But unlike
a legal document secured by a written text, criminals operate outside the law
and leave no paper trail.
“Roof” has been prevalent
in the post-Soviet era in the territories of the former Soviet Union,
where various entities offer protection -- organized crime, police, high
ranking government officials, and a few other powerful entities. The necessity
for “roof” is often part of business planning. Burisma is not an
exception.
In 2002, during the tenure of President Viktor Yanukovych, his ecology minister
Mykola Zlochevsky registered Burisma Holding Limited on Cyprus. Burisma
managed to secure lucrative government licenses for gas field
exploration and production to become the largest private gas company in
Ukraine. De jure , the licenses for the exploration of natural
resources are drafted as bilateral agreements between the government entities
and private enterprises, but de facto they are unilateral and
revocable grants of privileges by a president and high-ranking government
officials to their cronies and supporters.
As long as President Yanukovych was in power Mr. Zlochevsky’s assets
were secured from a hostile takeover. President Yanukovych was his “roof,” his protector,
defender, and benefactor. But, nothing under the sun is permanent.
In February 2014
Yanukovych was overthrown in a coup and fled the country. Zlochevsky
followed him shortly. In a dramatic reversal of fortunes, Burisma
overnight changed from one of the strongest to one of the weakest players in
Ukrainian power politics. The recourse of the weakest was to find a
new “roof” before newly-elected President Petro Poroshenko, who made no secret of his desire to add Burisma
to his basket of assets, would be sworn in during June 2014.
It is not known when
and who approached John Kerry and or Joe Biden, assuming the deal followed
classic local customs, and what was offered in exchange for lobbing and
political support. But on April 22, 2014, Devon Archer was put on
Burisma's board. On May 13,
2014, Hunter Biden himself joined the board.
On the same day, Christopher Heinz rushed to dissociate himself and the
firm from what looked like an unscrupulous endeavor. He emailed
Matt Summers and David Wade, two of his stepfather’s top aides at the State
Department, “I can’t speak why they decided to, but there was no investment by
our firm in their company,” wrote Heinz.
The passage clearly
displayed that the State Department was aware of the arrangement and
revealed Christopher Heinz’s concern
regarding if not the legitimacy but certainty the ethics of the undertaking.
For Burisma, the impact
of having Hunter Biden and Devon Archer
on its board could not be overstated. It
thought that it had acquired an ultimate “roof” -- the Vice President and the Secretary of State of
the United States of America. T he hiring sent a subliminal message to Poroshenko that Burisma is
protected by the US Government.
Poroshenko ignored the
message. As soon as he was sworn in, he directed his prosecutor general,
Vitaly Yarema, to open a corruption investigation into Burisma in order
to build a case to forfeit the profitable gas licenses awarded to Burisma.
In January 2015 Yarema
was replaced with Poroshenko’s close
associate Viktor Shokin who continued the investigation.
By 2016 the investigation
was at its pinnacle and Burisma’s management panicked. They had been contacting
the State Department requesting to end the investigation. In spring 2016 Joe Biden was forced to act. He stepped
in to protect his client Burisma Holding and demanded
Poroshenko to dismiss Shokin. Poroshenko refused.
They said, ‘You have
no authority. You’re not the President — Poroshenko said’ … I said, 'Call
him.' “ I looked at them and said, ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the
prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money.’ Well, son of a b----.
He got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time, " Biden bragged about his
accomplishment.
In a process, Biden
inadvertently admitted that President
Obama, if not involved, at least was aware of the shady business of
his Vice President.
Poroshenko couldn’t fight
the President of the United States, and Shokin was fired. At this
juncture, Poroshenko decided that it is better to have a percentage of
something than a hundred percent of nothing. He made a deal with Zlochevsky
and his trusted man Igor Kononenko joined Burisma's
board. The vanquished enemies became allies.
Miraculously, there was
no longer a need for investigation and a new prosecutor Yuriy
Lutsenko, “who was solid at the time,” closed
the probe. There was no longer a need for Joe Biden’s services
either. Hunter Biden and Devon Archer
eventually resigned from Burisma's
board. Zlochevsky returned to the country. The “roof” earned
its pay.
Photo credit: YouTube screengrab
(cropped)
Alexander G. Markovsky is a senior fellow at the London Center for
Policy Research, a conservative think hosted at King’s College, New York City,
which examines national security, energy, risk-analysis and other public policy
issues. He is the author of Anatomy of a Bolshevik and Liberal
Bolshevism: America Did Not Defeat Communism, She Adopted It. Mr.
Markovsky is the owner and CEO of Litwin Management Services, LLC. He can be
reached at info@litwinms.com
Hunter Biden’s Former Business Partner to Be Sentenced after Court Revives
Fraud Conviction
Mairead McArdle
,
National Review • October
9, 2020
Hunter Biden’s
former business parter will face sentencing in a fraud case after
a federal appeals court on Wednesday reinstated his conviction.
Devon Archer, a longtime business associate of Joe Biden’s son, was convicted in June, 2018 on charges
related to his involvement in a scheme to defraud a Native American tribe.
The defendants,
including Archer, are accused of pressuring the Wakpamni Lake Community
Association, an affiliate of the Oglala Sioux Tribe to issue $60
million in economic-development bonds which the defendants then used for their
own purposes, such as investing in their own businesses instead of investing it
back into the tribe.
After his
conviction, a federal judge in New York overturned Archer’s conviction later
that year, saying the evidence was insufficient to prove that Archer was
aware of the multi-million dollar bond fraud scheme.
The three-judge
panel of the New York-based 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated
Archer’s conviction on Wednesday, ruling that the lower court “abused its
discretion in vacating the judgment and granting a new trial” and stating that
Archer “knew at least the general nature and extent of the scheme and intended
to bring about its success.”
Archer is scheduled
to be sentenced on January 21.
Archer worked with
Hunter Biden on various business ventures, including serving with the
Democratic presidential nominee’s son on the board of a Ukrainian gas company
Burisma Holdings.
Hunter Biden was
appointed to Burisma’s board in 2014 while his father was vice president and
resigned from the board in April of last year after his lucrative position
on the board drew scrutiny.
In spring, 2016,
Biden called on Ukraine to fire the prosecutor who had been investigating the
energy company paying his son. The vice president threatened to withdraw $1
billion in U.S. military aid to Ukraine if the country did not fire the
prosecutor, who was accused by the State Department and U.S. allies in Europe
of being soft on corruption.
More from
National Review
·
Photo Shows Joe, Hunter Biden
Golfing with Ukrainian Oil Exec in 2014
·
Senate Report Details Hunter
Biden’s Extensive Foreign Business Dealings — and Obama Officials’ Efforts to
Ignore Them
·
Mainstream Outlets Ignore
Evidence of Hunter Biden’s Corrupt Foreign Dealings
Senate
Report: Hunter Biden’s Law Firm Took Nearly $6M from Chinese Oligarch
AP Photo/Patrick Semansky
23 Sep
2020581
6:07
Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden’s son’s law firm
received nearly six million from a Chinese oligarch who sought power and
influence in Washington, D.C.
A bombshell report by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental
Affairs Committee and Senate Finance Committee details numerous cases in which
Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, and family members have deep ties to the Chinese
communist government, Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan.
One such case notes Hunter Biden’s law firm, Owasco, seemingly
accepting nearly six million in consulting fees and legal representation from
Chinese oligarch Ye Jianming.
The report details:
On Aug. 8, 2017, CEFC Infrastructure Investment wired $5 million
to the bank account for Hudson West III. These funds may have originated from a
loan issued from the account of a company called Northern International Capital
Holdings, a Hong Kong-based investment company identified at one time as a
“substantial shareholder” in CEFC International Limited along with Ye. It is
unclear whether Hunter Biden was half-owner of Hudson West III at that time.
However, starting on Aug. 8, the same day the $5 million was received, and
continuing through Sept. 25, 2018, Hudson
West III sent frequent payments to Owasco, Hunter Biden’s firm. These payments,
which were described as consulting fees, reached $4,790,375.25 in just over a
year . [Emphasis added]
A million of the nearly six million transferred to Hunter
Biden’s law firm was then refunded, claiming that the payment was related to
his firm’s representation of Jianming associate Patrick Ho — convicted of international bribery and money laundering in 2019.
Ho’s legal representation in the case, though, did not include
Hunter Biden’s law firm. Attorneys with the firms Krieger Kim & Lewin
LLP and Dechert LLP represented Ho in the case, court records show.
The report states:
On March 22, 2018, a $1 million payment was sent from Hudson
West III to Owasco with a memo line for “Dr Patrick Ho Chi Ping
Representation.” In his alternative
explanation, Hunter Biden indicated that the misdirected $1 million was related
to his representation of Ye’s associate, Patrick Ho . These transactions illustrate the financial connections
between Gongwen Dong’s Hudson West III, Ye Jianming’s CEFC, and Hunter Biden’s
Owasco. [Emphasis added]
Biden stated that:
Boies Schiller Flexner is co-counsel for Dr. Patrick Ho’s case.
Hudson West III LLC has no involvement with Patrick Ho Chi Ping[’]s case and
won[’]t expect further transaction related to Dr. Patrick Ho Chi Ping trail
[sic] for Hudson West III LLC. Owasco LLC and co- Counsel
Boies Schiller Flexner will represent Dr. Patrick Ho Chi Ping [at] trial . [Emphasis added]
The report also reveals that at the same time Hunter Biden’s law
firm was taking payments from Jianming, he was transferring money to the
Lion Hall Group, a consulting firm run by Joe Biden’s brother, James Biden.
“Between Aug. 14, 2017 and Aug. 3, 2018, Owasco sent 20 wires
totaling $1,398,999 to the Lion Hall Group, a consulting firm that lists James
Biden and his wife, Sara Biden, on the bank account. This transaction was identified
for potential criminal financial activity,” the report states:
These transfers began less than one week after CEFC
Infrastructure Investment wired $5 million to Hudson West III and Hudson West
III sent its first payment of $400,000 to Owasco. Most of the payments from Owasco to the Lion Hall Group had
vague notes in the memo lines, 15 of which simply indicated that they were for
further credit to James Biden ; however, the memo
line for one of the payments read “HW3,” which indicates some of the transferred
money could be from Hudson West III. When the bank contacted Sara Biden
regarding the overall wire activity, she stated that the Lion Hall Group and
Owasco provide international and business consulting and that the Lion Hall
Group was assisting Owasco with an international client through a contract that
had since terminated. Sara Biden told the bank
that she would not provide any supporting documentation, and she also refused
to provide additional information to more clearly explain the activity . Consequently, the bank submitted the account for closure. The
Committees created the following chart with respect to this transaction.
[Emphasis added]
Hudson West III also sent funds directly to the Lion Hall Group.
According to records on file with the Committees, James B. Biden is the
principal contact for the Lion Hall Group, and between January 2018 and October
2018, Hudson West III sent the Lion Hall Group outgoing wires totaling
$76,746.15 with the memo, “office expense and reimbursement.” These transactions illustrate a direct financial link between
Hudson West III (which was connected to CEFC, the Chinese government, and
Gongwen Dong) and James Biden . [Emphasis added]
Similarly, as Breitbart News reported, Hunter Biden’s private
equity firm received about $3.5
million from Russian oligarch Yelena Baturina in 2014 as part of a
“consultancy agreement.”
The report states that members of the Biden family used credit cards linked to
associates with ties to the Chinese communist government and bought luxury
items with the funds.
Hunter Biden, in the report, is accused of making
payments to Russian and Eastern European women linked to prostitution and human
trafficking.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on
Twitter at @JxhnBinder .
A huge miasma of corruption
encircling Hunter and Joe Biden
By Veronika Kyrylenko
Do you
remember how Joe Biden gracefully demonstrated a true presidential demeanor
by blasting an Iowan voter who asked him about
Hunter Biden's role on the board of the corrupt Ukrainian company?
According to
Joe, a man was a "damn liar," "fat," and "too old to
vote for me." Guess what. The man was right, and the
question was legitimate, even though Joe Biden doesn't condescend to
answer any of those. People, however, still ask, and it looks
as though the questions are mounting with a neck-breaking speed that even a
healthy and clear-witted politician would have a hard time handling.
On
Sept. 23, Senators Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), chairman of the Senate
Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and Chuck Grassley
(R-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, released a report titled
" Hunter Biden, Burisma and Corruption:
the Impact on U.S. Foreign Policy and Related Concerns " that revealed millions of
dollars in questionable financial transactions between Hunter Biden and his
associates and foreign individuals, including the wife of the former mayor of
Moscow and individuals with ties to the Chinese Communist Party.
The
investigation was launched in August 2019 as the result of the so-called
"Henniges transaction," when Senate Finance Committee Chairman
Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) raised concerns over the process by which the
Obama administration's Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States
(CFIUS) approved the acquisition of a U.S. automotive technology company,
Henniges, with reported military applications. Henniges was
reportedly jointly acquired by Chinese government entities and an investment
firm linked to family members of then–vice president Joe Biden and other Obama
administration officials. Mr. Grassley wrote: "[O]ne of the
companies involved in the Henniges transaction was a billion dollar private
investment fund called Bohai Harvest RST (BHR). BHR was formed in
November of 2013 by a merger between the Chinese-government linked firm, Bohai
Capital, and a company named Rosemont Seneca Partners. Rosemont
Seneca was reportedly formed in 2009 by Hunter Biden, the son of then–Vice
President Joe Biden, Chris Heinz, the stepson of former Secretary of State John
Kerry, and others."
As the
investigation dug dipper, new and unexpected sums of cash, foreign entities,
and transactions appeared in the Biden case. The Biden family and
their associates got involved in shady relations with Ukrainian, Russian,
Kazakh, and Chinese nationals, which raises criminal concerns and extradition
threats, as put in the report.
Here are some
key findings:
First and
foremost: The Obama administration was aware of, but did nothing
about, the conflict of interest that was created when Joe Biden's son, Hunter
Biden, was appointed to the board of Burisma, a corrupt Ukrainian fossil fuel
company. In early 2015, the former acting deputy chief of mission at
the U.S. embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine, George Kent, raised concerns to officials in
Vice President Joe Biden's office about the perception of a conflict of interest
with respect to Hunter Biden's role on Burisma's board. His concerns
went unanswered. Later that year, senior State Department official
Amos Hochstein raised concerns with Vice President Biden himself, as well as
with Hunter Biden, that Hunter's position on Burisma's board enabled Russian
disinformation efforts and risked undermining U.S. policy in
Ukraine. In addition to that, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine,
Marie Yovanovitch, admitted that she had been briefed about the fact that
Hunter Biden was on Burisma's board, but ignored it in 2016.
Hunter Biden
and his business partner Devon Archer joined Burisma after the British
officials seized $23 million from the London bank accounts of Burisma's owner —
it was a known fact that Burisma is not a suitable company for the vice
president's son to join — especially when the father is called a "public
face of the administration's handling of Ukraine," where anti-corruption
efforts were the number-one priority. Nonetheless, over the course
of the several years, Hunter Biden and Devon Archer were paid millions of
dollars from a corrupt Ukrainian oligarch for their participation on the board.
Furthermore,
in addition to the over $4 million paid by Burisma for Hunter Biden's and
Archer's board memberships, Hunter Biden, his family, and Archer received
millions of dollars from foreign nationals with questionable
backgrounds. The report names Archer as receiving $142,300 from
Kenges Rakishev of Kazakhstan, purportedly for a car, on the same day that Vice
President Joe Biden appeared and addressed Ukrainian legislators in Kyiv
regarding Russia's actions in Crimea. Hunter Biden also received a
$3.5-million wire transfer from Elena Baturina, the wife of the former mayor of
Moscow. Hunter additionally opened a bank account with China's
Gongwen Dong to fund a $100,000 global spending spree with James Biden and Sara
Biden. Hunter Biden had business associations with Ye Jianming,
Gongwen Dong, and other Chinese nationals linked to the communist government
and the People's Liberation Army. Those associations resulted in
millions of dollars in cash flow. And last but not the least, it was
found that Hunter Biden paid nonresident women who were nationals of Russia or
other Eastern European countries and who appear to be linked to an
"Eastern European prostitution or human trafficking
ring." This is the same Hunter Biden who had well-known
compulsive relationships with prostitutes and strippers back home. Even
though Jill Biden claims that she "knows her
son's character," so he couldn't do "anything wrong,"
paying women for sex and being associated with prostitution rings is something
that resonates with Hunter's character just perfectly. Sentiments
aside, it is simply hard to argue with stone-cold evidence of money wires.
You certainly
may try to imagine one of Trump's children being in Hunter's place. The hell of
professional protestors would have stormed the White House by now demanding
"justice," because "no one is above the law." The media
reaction to the 87 pages of the detailed report of the Biden's sketchy schemes?
Don't roll your eyes too hard, you don't want to injure yourself. Trump
and Russia are to blame.
The New York
Times and The Washington Post scorned the report as an "inconclusive"
partisan smear echoing of Russian propaganda. "Republican Inquiry Finds No
Evidence of Wrongdoing by Biden," was the Times' headline. "GOP's Hunter
Biden report doesn't back up Trump's actual conspiracy theory — or anything
close to it," said the Washington Post . "GOP senators' anti-Biden
report repackages old claims" was another typical headline dismissing the report,
this from Politico .
A story of a
then-Vice President's son receiving millions of dollars from foreign entities
associated closely with their governments and whose interests did not
necessarily coincide with America's best interests gets frowned upon with
such unseen hypocrisy and blind bias, that one may wonder that if democracy
truly dies in darkness, then maybe it is an ultimate leftist plan for this
country, after all.
Mainstream
media may deliberately shut their eyes on the facts of the unfolding case of
the Biden family getting rich in exchange for American interests. They may even
distort the gross and, as it seems, criminal wrongdoings, as in some wild
junkie's dream, and present it as a legit business venture. They may put as
much lipstick on a pig as they wish. But an demented, enormously corrupt
man who reeks of treason cannot be a president of the United States.
Please follow Veronika Kyrylenko, Ph.D on Twitter or LinkedIn .
Photo illustration by Monica Showalter with use of images by Gage Skidmore, via Flickr // CC BY-SA 2.0 , Acaben, via Wikimedia Commons // CC BY-SA 2.0 , PxFuel public domain , ABC News YouTube screen shot , and Voice of America // public domain
GET
THIS BOOK ON AMERICA’S RULING CLASS KLEPTOCRACY
On Corruption in America: And What Is at
Stake BY SARAH CHAYES
· Hardcover : 432
pages
· ISBN-10
: 0525654852
· ISBN-13
: 978-0525654858
·
Sarah Chayes uses her considerable analytical skills to
tell the story of corruption in America and the scale of our current corrupt
systems, exemplified by the network of Corporations, politicians, enabling lawyers and other
agencies who have effectively corroded in the furtherance of their profit, all
that was good and just and egalitarian in US society. Please read, please vow
to support the changes she calls for. Our morality, our souls are at stake.
On Corruption in America: And What Is at
Stake
From the prizewinning journalist, internationally
recognized expert on corruption in government networks throughout the world,
author of Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security ("I
can't imagine a more important book for our time,"--Sebastian Junger;
"Required reading,"--Tom Friedman; "compelling, fascinating . .
. a call to action,"--The Huffington Post ), a major, unflinching
book that looks homeward to America, exploring the insidious, dangerous
networks of corruption of our past, present, and precarious future.
Now, bringing to bear all of her knowledge, grasp, sense of history and
observation, Sarah Chayes writes in her new book, that the United
States is showing signs similar to some of the most corrupt countries in the world.
Corruption, as Chayes sees it, is an operating system of sophisticated networks
in which government officials, key private-sector interests, and out-and-out
criminals interweave. Their main objective: not to serve the public but to
maximize returns for network members.
From the titans of America's Gilded Age (Carnegie, Rockefeller, J. P. Morgan,
et al.) to the collapse of the stock market in 1929, the Great Depression and
FDR's New Deal; from Joe Kennedy's years of banking, bootlegging, machine
politics, and pursuit of infinite wealth, as well as the Kennedy presidency, to
the deregulation of the Reagan Revolution, undermining the middle class and the
unions; from the Clinton policies of political favors and personal enrichment
to Trump's hydra-headed network of corruption, systematically undoing the
Constitution and our laws, Chayes shows how corrupt systems are organized, how
they enforce the rules so their crimes are covered legally, how they are
overlooked and downplayed--shrugged off with a roll of the eyes--by the richer
and better educated, how they become an overt principle determining the shape
of our government, affecting all levels of society.
Top reviews from the United States
5.0 out of 5 stars The 21st century
successor to Ida Tarbell and Upton Sinclair
Reviewed in the United States on August 14, 2020
Verified Purchase
Reading Sarah Chayes's descriptions of Gilded Age and
modern kleptocracy from Reagan to Trump, I couldn't help remembering Upton
Sinclairs' observation that he had aimed for the nation's heart with his novel
_The Jungle_ but hit its stomach. Chayes's history of the Gilded Age, in my
opinion, is at least as good if not better than Howard Zinn's and Thomas
Frank's, and some of her detailed descriptions of American corruption from 1873
to present often made me feel physically ill.
Not a few money-obsessed Democrats come in for scathing criticism alongside the
expected bevy of Republicans (including the heirs to the Dixiecrats). It is not
a matter of party or class per se: Chayes argues, correctly I think, that the
Great Depression and World War II not only enabled the fulfillment of many of
the goals of the strikers and protestors of the six decades from 1873 to 1933
but also taught most Americans a kind of social empathy that has been
systematically and deliberately attacked by networks of moneyed interests from
1980 to the present day.
Some readers may be a bit put off by Chayes's reliance on Greek and Christian
allegories for thematic continuity, but I appreciated them. In any case, she
more than redeems herself by drawing from her personal experiences in
"third world" nations to expose, again and again, the hubris of
Americans like Trump, whose infamous comment about "shithole" African
countries reveals so much of the kleptocratic mindset and his personal
psychopathy.
Chayes offers many specific ideas for digging ourselves out of the quagmire of
kleptocracy and corruption, but no simple solutions. Given climate change and
the COVID-19 pandemic, will we survive long enough to pursue them, let alone
turn the tide?
This process was sped up
by the 2008 financial crisis, in which the Obama administration took measures
to gut autoworkers’ pay while funneling trillions of dollars to Wall Street.
According to a Bloomberg analysis
of the data, the richest 50 Americans now have as much wealth as the bottom
half of the population. The increased concentration of wealth at the top in the
course of 2020 is the result of the unprecedented injection of money into the
stock market by the Fed, which has led to an explosive growth in the fortunes
of moguls such as Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Tesla chief Elon Musk and Facebook CEO
Mark Zuckerberg.
Richest 50 Americans now have as much
wealth as bottom 165 million
The Federal Reserve released data this week on US
household wealth that documents the acceleration of wealth inequality during
the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the second quarter
of 2020, the bottom 50 percent of households—some 165 million people—held $2.08
trillion, or $12,600 per person, while the richest one percent of the
population controlled $34.2 trillion, i.e., over $10.4 million per person. In
percentile terms, the top one percent of the population held 30.5 percent of
all wealth, while the bottom 50 percent controlled only 1.9 percent.
According to a Bloomberg analysis
of the data, the richest 50 Americans now have as much wealth as the bottom
half of the population. The increased concentration of wealth at the top in the
course of 2020 is the result of the unprecedented injection of money into the
stock market by the Fed, which has led to an explosive growth in the fortunes
of moguls such as Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Tesla chief Elon Musk and Facebook CEO
Mark Zuckerberg.
The divide in wealth appears even more gigantic
when one looks at the top 10 percent of the population as a whole. Combined,
the top one percent and next nine percent held 69 percent of the nation’s
wealth at the end of the second quarter of 2020, a total of $77.32 trillion.
Between the first and second quarter of 2020,
the top one percent of the population increased its share of the country’s
wealth from 30 percent to 30.5 percent. The biggest losers were those in the 50
to 90 percentile range of wealth holders, who saw their overall share shrink
from 29.7 percent to 29.1 percent. The 90 to 99 percentile and the bottom half
remained largely unchanged.
While these changes may appear slight, they
actually represent a substantial shift in a short period of time. The
top one percent of the population substantially increased its share of the
country’s wealth as the Fed effectively printed over $3 trillion and injected
it into the financial markets. Better-off sections of workers, who,
unlike the bottom half of the working class, have some level of savings,
retirement funds or other assets, saw their wealth share decline, as they were
forced to draw on savings amidst the global downturn.
One explanation for this sharpening division
between, roughly, the top 10 percent of the population and the bottom 90
percent of the population is the disproportionate ownership of stocks and
mutual funds. The top one percent of the population owns 52.4 percent of all
corporate equities (stocks) and mutual funds, the next nine percent owns 35.8
percent.
Combined, 88.2 percent of the US economy, as
represented in corporate equities and mutual funds, is owned by just 10 percent
of the population.
While the bottom half of the population has for
the last several decades held only one percent of the nation’s stocks,
better-off sections of the working class, the 50th to 90th percentiles, held
21.4 percent of this wealth in the early 2000s. However, today this share has
fallen to just 11.2 percent. In other words, better-off sections of the working
class, less connected to the financial markets, have seen their fortunes move
in an opposite direction to those in the top 10 percent of the population.
Another interesting feature of the Fed data is
its breakdown by age group. The Millennial group—those born between 1981 and
1996—is today the largest share of the American workforce, accounting for 72
million workers. However, Millennials own just 4.6 percent of US wealth.
In contrast, the data shows that in 1989, when
the typical member of the Baby Boomer generation was 34, that generation
controlled about 21 percent of wealth.
This contrast between the wealth of Millennials
and that of Boomers at similar times in their life cycles reflects the
incredible difficulty that young people today face in landing a decent-paying
job, paying for college and paying for health care, let alone taking out a
mortgage, raising a family and saving for retirement.
The Fed data comes on top of several other
recent reports and announcements about social inequality, including:
A
UBS report showing that the world’s
billionaires have increased their wealth by over $1.3 trillion, more than
10 percent, in just three years.
An
announcement by the World Bank that the fallout from COVID-19 will push as
many as 150 million people into what it classifies as extreme poverty
(living on less than $1.90 per day) by 2021. This is the first time the
number of people in extreme poverty has increased since 1998.
A Wall
Street Journal report that, using Labor Department data,
demonstrated the divergence of fortunes for educated and noneducated
workers amid the pandemic. The Journal found that,
while those with college degrees have nearly recovered from COVID-19 job
losses (which were smaller), high school dropouts still have 18 percent
fewer jobs.
A
RAND report that found the bottom 90
percent of Americans would be making 67 percent more without last four
decades of deepening inequality.
The ever-growing concentration of wealth at the
top of the population weighs like a malignant tumor over society. No social
problem, whether it be inequality, global warming, education, health care,
retirement or the pandemic, can be solved without mobilizing these vast
fortunes at the top and placing them under the democratic control of the broad
majority of the population.
The process of extreme class restructuring, and
the decimation of the ranks of the better-off, “middle-class” workers depicted
in the Fed data, has been underway for at least 40 years. Under Democratic no
less than Republican leadership, president after president, Congress after
Congress, policies have been carried out that inflated the wealth of the
ultra-rich while degrading the conditions of the working class.
This process was sped up by the 2008 financial
crisis, in which the Obama administration took measures to gut autoworkers’ pay
while funneling trillions of dollars to Wall Street.
Now, a similar but even more drastic social
restructuring is underway in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Millions have
been thrown into long-term joblessness and poverty, while $3 trillion have been
injected into the financial markets and hundreds of billions of dollars given
out to major corporations under the bipartisan CARES Act.
The needs of the working class—the broad
majority of the population—stand in direct conflict with the interests of the
parasitic financial elite. The major banks and corporations, which control
nearly every aspect of global life today, must be placed under the democratic
ownership and supervision of the working class so that that the needs of the
population can be met.
As pandemic death toll approaches 200,000, American oligarchs
celebrate their wealth
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 on their part, 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 and the 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 toward
fascism and the cultivation of the extreme right cannot be understood except in
relation to the class interests of the oligarchy, representing that faction of
the ruling class that seeks to smash outright any sign of opposition from the
working class. On the other side of the coin, the Democrats represent the
faction that seeks to use the politics of race and identity to smother the class
struggle, while cultivating sections of the upper-middle class that use the
politics of race and gender to fight for access to positions of power and carve
out for themselves a bigger share of the wealth of the top 10 percent.
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 on the list were 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 among 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 top 10 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. Its wealth must be
expropriated and directed toward meeting social needs. The large corporations
and banks must be 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—are 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
JOHN BINDER
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
JOHN BINDER
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
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.
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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