Friday, October 30, 2015

OBAMA-CLINTONomics and the 1% - The mergers boom, the financial oligarchy and imperialism

The mergers boom, the financial oligarchy and imperialism

The mergers boom, the financial oligarchy and imperialism

30 October 2015
According to press reports Thursday, the drug makers Allergan and Pfizer are in the advanced stages of talks to merge and form the world’s largest pharmaceutical company, a $330 billion giant that will be based in Ireland and pay next to no income tax.
The merger, which would be the largest so far this year, is only the latest in a wave of corporate mergers and acquisitions that is expected to make 2015 a record year for takeovers, eclipsing the $3.4 trillion in deals made in 2007, the year before the Wall Street crash.
The Allergan-Pfizer announcement came the day after the Walgreens pharmacy chain announced plans to buy competitor Rite Aid in a deal valued at $17.2 billion. The resulting company would control 41 percent of the US pharmacy market, with competitor CVS controlling another 58 percent. All other companies combined would account for a mere 0.6 percent.
This is only the latest in a record year for health care mergers, including the $54.2 billion purchase of health insurer Cigna by its rival Anthem, and the $37 billion takeover of Humana by Aetna. As a result of these mergers, the five largest health insurers in the US were consolidated into three in a matter of weeks.
A central motive in the Walgreens/Rite Aid and Allergan/Pfizer mergers was increasing pricing power by further monopolizing the market. The transformation of the US pharmacy market into a duopoly will have a dramatic upward impact on drug prices paid by consumers.
The growing monopolization of the health care field has contributed to soaring costs in the United States. In 2013, the last year for which data is available, the price of top brand name prescription drugs increased by 12.9 percent, eight times faster than the rate of inflation.
These mergers, far from expressing economic health and “dynamism,” reflect the economic rot at the heart of global capitalism. Record merger activity in 2015 goes hand in hand with the lowest level of global economic growth since 2008-2009.
In the most immediate sense, these mergers are the response of corporations, driven on by the demands of Wall Street for ever-bigger payouts, to conditions of reduced demand amid a global slump and the collapse of workers’ incomes.
The wave of mergers, along with record stock buybacks and other completely parasitic activities, are facilitated by the policies of the world’s central banks, led by the Federal Reserve, which have kept interest rates near zero and injected trillions of dollars into the financial markets through bond purchases, dubbed “quantitative easing.”
Far from using the funds pumped into the financial system for productive investment, major corporations are sitting on a record cash hoard of $1.4 trillion, which they are using to buy back shares (further inflating stock prices and the portfolios of the rich and the super-rich), boost executive pay, and carry out mergers and acquisitions.
The mergers, while generating bumper profits for investors and huge payouts to corporate executives, generally lead to layoffs, wage cuts, speedups and the shutdown of plants and retail outlets. Such financial parasitism is the process by which finance capital boosts profits by cannibalizing the productive forces of society.
While these processes have accelerated in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crash, they have been ongoing for decades, resulting in a social disaster for ever-broader sections of the working class. Millions of American workers have been reduced to a state of semi-penury, with 40 percent making less than $20,000 per year.
Abject social misery is coupled with fantastic levels of wealth. To cite just one example, the hedge fund mogul Kenneth Griffin of Chicago-based Citadel LLC, who made $1.3 billion last year, has gone on a real estate spending spree, lavishing some $300 million on properties in three cities, including three full floors at the condo tower under construction at 220 Central Park South, which he purchased for $200 million, a record for New York City real estate.
Economic and political life in the United States and indeed the whole world is dominated by the parasitic and money-mad financial oligarchy that Griffin embodies. The policies of global central banks and major capitalist governments have had as their sole aim to protect and increase the wealth of this financial elite and to subsidize their plunder of man’s resources all over the world for their own personal fortunes.
These are characteristics that the Russian revolutionary and theoretician Vladimir Lenin identified at a much earlier stage of their development. In his 1917 masterwork, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, Lenin explained that the tendency toward financial parasitism, monopoly, dictatorship and war are not simply the result of subjective policies chosen by political leaders, but an expression of the fundamental tendencies of capitalism in its period of decay and morbidity.
Lenin wrote, “Political reaction all along the line is a characteristic feature of imperialism,” defined by “corruption, bribery on a huge scale and all kinds of fraud.” The domination of the banks over all aspects of social life finds political expression in the erosion of democratic rights at home. “Finance capital strives for domination, not freedom.”
There is a connection between the criminal character of this financial aristocracy and the criminal character of foreign policy. The war at home against US workers mirrors the predatory wars launched by the US against the people of the Middle East and Africa. Used to speculative gambling to make its billions, the financial elite turns to geopolitical “risk-taking” and homicidal recklessness in its international policy.
But the corollary of Lenin’s theory, proven in the subsequent history of the 20th and 21st centuries, is that imperialism is the epoch of not only reaction and war, but also of revolution. Now, as the fundamental characteristics of capitalism express themselves in the most naked form, the consequent sharpening of class antagonisms will lead inevitably to revolutionary upheavals.
Andre Damon



TO KEEP WAGES DEPRESSED AND BUILD THEIR LA RAZA "The Race" MEXICAN ILLEGAL PARTY BASE, THE DEMOCRAT PARTY HAS RUTHLESSLY ASSAULTED THE AMERICAN WORKER, OUR LAWS ON HIRING ILLEGALS AND OUR BORDERS TO KEEP WAGES DEPRESSED.



"The U.S. now ranks at, or near, the top of developed countries for income inequality. Job creation has lagged far behind population growth. Automation has erased some jobs, but corrupt, inept government leadership is responsible for the deplorable job- deficit-low wage situation." 

"The federal government encourages the massive illegal and legal immigration that plays a huge role in job scarcity and income suppression for American workers. To paraphrase Milton Friedman, a viable economy cannot exist with open borders and unrestricted immigration. An oversupply of workers willing to work for less pay, the outsourcing of jobs, and visa-immigrant hiring allow companies to replace American workers with immigrants for reduced labor and benefit costs."



Income inequality has risen during the last several decades to heights last seen in the 1920s. Most of the income growth has gone to a small fraction of the population, the ultra-rich elites, while real wages for the bottom 90 percent ...

The Causes of Income Inequality

 
Income inequality has risen during the last several decades to heights last seen in the 1920s. Most of the income growth has gone to a small fraction of the population, the ultra-rich elites, while real wages for the bottom 90 percent has been stagnant since the 1980s. The U.S. now ranks at, or near, the top of developed countries for income inequality. Job creation has lagged far behind population growth. Automation has erased some jobs, but corrupt, inept government leadership is responsible for the deplorable job- deficit-low wage situation.    

Trade agreements are one cause of job and wage reduction. Over the last twenty years, we’ve amassed $10 trillion in trade deficits and exported 12 million manufacturing jobs, forcing workers to move into lower-wage service jobs. Government brags about the free trade agreements, CAFTA, NAFTA, KORUS, and TPP. But the “free” applies only to the foreign trading partners, which manipulate their currencies, pay sweatshop workers low wages, manufacture under environmentally-toxic conditions, and restrict U.S. imports. We hand over our technology, good-paying jobs, product labeling, and safety guarantees -- all to enrich multinational corporations and foreign industry. Industrial research and development have been decimated as companies move overseas or outsource jobs, leaving the nation a future of little technological innovation. The U.S. is left with hollowed-out industries and service jobs. 

The federal government encourages the massive illegal and legal immigration that plays a huge role in job scarcity and income suppression for American workers. To paraphrase Milton Friedman, a viable economy cannot exist with open borders and unrestricted immigration. An oversupply of workers willing to work for less pay, the outsourcing of jobs, and visa-immigrant hiring allow companies to replace American workers with immigrants for reduced labor and benefit costs. A well-known example is that of Disney IT workers who were forced to train their cheaper immigrant replacements. It is no coincidence that the rise in immigration has occurred simultaneously with the rise of the welfare state. People unemployed, or in low-wage and part-time jobs, rely on government subsidies. The result is larger national debt, more corporate wealth, and declining wages.

ObamaCare influences, and will influence to greater degrees, the lowering of incomes for Americans as healthcare costs rise. Higher premiums and deductions for health insurance are being shifted to employees, reducing benefits and wages. Medical care costs already have risen much faster than wages, leaving many struggling to pay for necessities. Ever-higher deductions mean that people can’t afford to use the insurance they are forced to buy because they can’t even pay the deductions.        

Another contributor to job deficiency and wage stagnation is the increased regulation and taxation of small businesses instituted by Obama’s executive orders, EPA overreach, and ObamaCare. Small businesses traditionally have created two-thirds of new jobs annually. The bright spot in the economy, small businesses have created 78.7 percent of new jobs since the recession. Today, faced with these government anti-business policies, small businesses are closing their doors at a faster rate than new businesses are opening. The small businesses that remain open often don’t expand because of Obamacare and government regulations.

Income inequality is greatly impacted by the Federal Reserve’s policies of money-printing and zero interest rates, which have led to the funding of the financial and corporate markets while ignoring the needs of smaller businesses. The money supply and cheap lending has gone to the government, large corporations, and Wall Street, leaving the rest of the economy to sputter along with little capital and fewer jobs. The Fed’s policies of crony capitalism favor big business and big banks over that of smaller entities and are responsible for the increasing number of big business deals such as Walgreen's purchase of Rite Aid.


DEATH OF THE AMERICAN MIDDLE-CLASS

This government-driven, crony-capitalist economy defined by job scarcity and wage stagnation is the reason college graduates are burdened by $1.3 trillion debt, living with parents, can’t afford to marry or buy homes, and working as waitresses and bartenders. Job scarcity and low wages are the reasons we’re becoming a nation of renters rather than homeowners. They are the reasons that 51 percent of workers earn less than $30,000 a year. They are the reasons for the demise of the middle class and the burgeoning welfare rolls, the modern-day equivalent of slavery.    

Income inequality and its devastating consequences are seldom mentioned on the nightly news. The media and bogus government statistics paint rosy pictures about economic recovery, and government masks the bad economy with welfare so that we don’t see Great Depression bread lines. But the only recovery has been in the Federal Reserve’s inflated stock market, not in the main street economy, where 94 million working-age adults are unemployed and 47 million are on some welfare program. The “Made in America” displays weekly touted by ABC news are the few exceptions, rather than the rule, in an American economy of boarded-up stores and factories.    
The political implications of income inequality are most evident in the increasing rise and entrenchment of career politicians, supported by big donor funding and media favoritism. The integrity of the electoral process is endangered as election propaganda, funded by big money and hyped by corporate media bias, become more prominent in spreading lies, distortions, and innuendos to the voting public. Unrestricted campaign funding has given the moneyed elites first access to elected officials. At the same time, private-sector unions, small businesses, and citizens find their influence dwindling or irrelevant. This crony capitalism, resembling dictatorships and communist oligarchies, seriously threatens our democracy because money, power, and media control are consolidated in the hands of a few at the top. Voter apathy prevails, as voters feel increasingly powerless to change the course of events. 

The United States, a once great economic powerhouse and the largest creditor nation, has become the largest debtor nation, and is fast becoming a banana republic. Past and present elected authorities and public officials have stripped bare our industries, put the nation under a mountain of debt, and turned the U.S. into a welfare depository. Government leaders have intentionally failed to protect our borders, jobs, and freedoms. These public “servants” and the wealthy elites have garnered riches for themselves, and purposely impoverished citizens and future generations. The greatest threats to our economy and national security are not foreign countries or terrorists; they are the enemies inside, corrupt government leaders and the money masters they serve. 
 
Income inequality has risen during the last several decades to heights last seen in the 1920s. Most of the income growth has gone to a small fraction of the population, the ultra-rich elites, while real wages for the bottom 90 percent has been stagnant since the 1980s. The U.S. now ranks at, or near, the top of developed countries for income inequality. Job creation has lagged far behind population growth. Automation has erased some jobs, but corrupt, inept government leadership is responsible for the deplorable job- deficit-low wage situation.    

Trade agreements are one cause of job and wage reduction. Over the last twenty years, we’ve amassed $10 trillion in trade deficits and exported 12 million manufacturing jobs, forcing workers to move into lower-wage service jobs. Government brags about the free trade agreements, CAFTA, NAFTA, KORUS, and TPP. But the “free” applies only to the foreign trading partners, which manipulate their currencies, pay sweatshop workers low wages, manufacture under environmentally-toxic conditions, and restrict U.S. imports. We hand over our technology, good-paying jobs, product labeling, and safety guarantees -- all to enrich multinational corporations and foreign industry. Industrial research and development have been decimated as companies move overseas or outsource jobs, leaving the nation a future of little technological innovation. The U.S. is left with hollowed-out industries and service jobs. 
The federal government encourages the massive illegal and legal immigration that plays a huge role in job scarcity and income suppression for American workers. To paraphrase Milton Friedman, a viable economy cannot exist with open borders and unrestricted immigration. An oversupply of workers willing to work for less pay, the outsourcing of jobs, and visa-immigrant hiring allow companies to replace American workers with immigrants for reduced labor and benefit costs. A well-known example is that of Disney IT workers who were forced to train their cheaper immigrant replacements. It is no coincidence that the rise in immigration has occurred simultaneously with the rise of the welfare state. People unemployed, or in low-wage and part-time jobs, rely on government subsidies. The result is larger national debt, more corporate wealth, and declining wages.

ObamaCare influences, and will influence to greater degrees, the lowering of incomes for Americans as healthcare costs rise. Higher premiums and deductions for health insurance are being shifted to employees, reducing benefits and wages. Medical care costs already have risen much faster than wages, leaving many struggling to pay for necessities. Ever-higher deductions mean that people can’t afford to use the insurance they are forced to buy because they can’t even pay the deductions.        

Another contributor to job deficiency and wage stagnation is the increased regulation and taxation of small businesses instituted by Obama’s executive orders, EPA overreach, and ObamaCare. Small businesses traditionally have created two-thirds of new jobs annually. The bright spot in the economy, small businesses have created 78.7 percent of new jobs since the recession. Today, faced with these government anti-business policies, small businesses are closing their doors at a faster rate than new businesses are opening. The small businesses that remain open often don’t expand because of Obamacare and government regulations.

Income inequality is greatly impacted by the Federal Reserve’s policies of money-printing and zero interest rates, which have led to the funding of the financial and corporate markets while ignoring the needs of smaller businesses. The money supply and cheap lending has gone to the government, large corporations, and Wall Street, leaving the rest of the economy to sputter along with little capital and fewer jobs. The Fed’s policies of crony capitalism favor big business and big banks over that of smaller entities and are responsible for the increasing number of big business deals such as Walgreen's purchase of Rite Aid.

This government-driven, crony-capitalist economy defined by job scarcity and wage stagnation is the reason college graduates are burdened by $1.3 trillion debt, living with parents, can’t afford to marry or buy homes, and working as waitresses and bartenders. Job scarcity and low wages are the reasons we’re becoming a nation of renters rather than homeowners. They are the reasons that 51 percent of workers earn less than $30,000 a year. They are the reasons for the demise of the middle class and the burgeoning welfare rolls, the modern-day equivalent of slavery.    

Income inequality and its devastating consequences are seldom mentioned on the nightly news. The media and bogus government statistics paint rosy pictures about economic recovery, and government masks the bad economy with welfare so that we don’t see Great Depression bread lines. But the only recovery has been in the Federal Reserve’s inflated stock market, not in the main street economy, where 94 million working-age adults are unemployed and 47 million are on some welfare program. The “Made in America” displays weekly touted by ABC news are the few exceptions, rather than the rule, in an American economy of boarded-up stores and factories.    
The political implications of income inequality are most evident in the increasing rise and entrenchment of career politicians, supported by big donor funding and media favoritism. The integrity of the electoral process is endangered as election propaganda, funded by big money and hyped by corporate media bias, become more prominent in spreading lies, distortions, and innuendos to the voting public. Unrestricted campaign funding has given the moneyed elites first access to elected officials. At the same time, private-sector unions, small businesses, and citizens find their influence dwindling or irrelevant. This crony capitalism, resembling dictatorships and communist oligarchies, seriously threatens our democracy because money, power, and media control are consolidated in the hands of a few at the top. Voter apathy prevails, as voters feel increasingly powerless to change the course of events. 

The United States, a once great economic powerhouse and the largest creditor nation, has become the largest debtor nation, and is fast becoming a banana republic. Past and present elected authorities and public officials have stripped bare our industries, put the nation under a mountain of debt, and turned the U.S. into a welfare depository. Government leaders have intentionally failed to protect our borders, jobs, and freedoms. These public “servants” and the wealthy elites have garnered riches for themselves, and purposely impoverished citizens and future generations. The greatest threats to our economy and national security are not foreign countries or terrorists; they are the enemies inside, corrupt government leaders and the money masters they serve. 


Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/11/the_causes_of_income_inequality.html#ixzz3qSBDYQVs
Follow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on Facebook



Obamacare open enrollment: A widening health care disaster for workers

Obamacare open enrollment: A widening health care disaster for workers

3 November 2015
“All of Obama’s policies have been geared toward increasing social inequality. … The claim that the health care overhaul is an oasis of progress in this desert of social reaction is simply a lie”— World Socialist Web Site, March 22, 2010

STOLEN TOSHIBA LAPTOP - Satelite S875 - SERIAL YC029641R


Please return or report to the West Hollywood Sheriff's office:

310-855-8850

Report No. 915-05608-0977-089

Thanks for your help and the laptop's return.

Thursday, October 29, 2015

SOARING POVERTY IN AMERICA - MILLIONS OF ILLEGALS WOULD AGREE! - Half of US workers make less than $30,000 per year

Half of US workers make less than $30,000 per year




Top 1 percent own more than half of world’s wealth

Top 1 percent own more than half of world’s wealth

By Patrick Martin 
14 October 2015
A new report issued by the Swiss bank Credit Suisse finds that global wealth inequality continues to worsen and has reached a new milestone, with the top 1 percent owning more of the world’s assets than the bottom 99 percent combined.
Of the estimated $250 trillion in global assets, the top 1 percent owned almost exactly 50 percent, while the bottom 50 percent of humanity owned collectively less than 1 percent. The richest 10 percent owned 87.7 percent of the world’s wealth, leaving 12.3 percent for the bottom 90 percent of the population.
The Credit Suisse report focused not on the top 1 percent, but on a slightly smaller group, the 0.7 percent of adults with assets of more than 1 million US dollars. This figure includes both financial assets and real assets, such as homes, small businesses and other physical property.
The report’s eye-catching “Global Wealth Pyramid” divides the human race into four categories by wealth: 3.4 billion adults with net assets of less than $10,000; 1 billion with net assets from $10,000 to $100,000; 349 million with net assets from $100,000 to $1 million; and 34 million with net assets over $1 million.
The lowest category comprises 71 percent of all adults and owns only 3 percent of total wealth; the next-poorest group comprises 21 percent of adults and owns 12.5 percent of the wealth; above this is a group comprising 7.4 percent of adults and owning 39.4 of the wealth; and finally the top layer, 0.7 percent of adults owning 45.2 percent of the wealth.
This top layer, defined by the report as “high-net-worth individuals,” is itself divided very unequally, as shown in a second pyramid: 29.8 million with assets of $1 million to $5 million; 2.5 million with assets of $5 million to $10 million; 1.34 million with assets of $10 million to $50 million; and finally, 123,800 with assets over $50 million.
These 123,800 “ultra-high-net-worth individuals,” as the report calls them, are the true global financial aristocracy, exercising decisive sway not only over banks and corporations, but over governments and international institutions as well. Of these, nearly 59,000, almost half the total, live in the United States. Another quarter live in Europe (mainly Britain, Germany, Switzerland, France and Italy), followed by China and then Japan.
The Credit Suisse report notes the particularly rapid rise in inequality since the Wall Street crash of 2008 and relates it directly to the stock market boom that followed the bailout of the banks, initiated by the Bush administration and greatly expanded by the Obama administration. A key passage reads:
“There are strong reasons to think that the rise in wealth inequality since 2008 is mostly related to the rise in equity prices and to the size of financial assets in the United States and some other high-wealth countries, which together have pushed up the wealth of some of the richest countries and of many of the richest people around the world. The jump in the share of the top percentile to 50 percent this year exceeds the increase expected on the basis of any underlying upward trend. It is consistent, however, with the fact that financial assets continue to increase in relative importance and that the rise in the USD (US dollar) over the past year has given wealth inequality in the United States—which is very high by international standards—more weight in the overall global picture.”
In other words, deepening global economic inequality is being driven above all by American capitalism, with the United States being both the wealthiest and by far the most unequal country in the world. The US has less than 5 percent of the world’s population, but a staggering 46 percent of the world’s millionaires.
Far from demonstrating the health of the US economy, this disproportionate growth of the super-rich resembles the spread of a cancer that is rapidly metastasizing, with fatal consequences for the entire social organism.
Never have the rich increased their wealth so quickly as in America since the financial crash of 2008. But side by side with the amassing of previously unthinkable private fortunes, the infrastructure of America is crumbling, education, health care and other social services are starved of funding, and the living standards of the vast majority of the population, the working people who produce the wealth, are declining.
The Credit Suisse report also calls attention to significant regional differences within the structure of global capitalism, focusing on the diverging fortunes of three main regions: North America, Europe and the Asia-Pacific.
Total global wealth declined slightly in 2015, according to the report, but only because the bank’s calculations were in US dollars, and thus were affected by the depreciation of the euro, the Japanese yen, the Russian ruble, the Canadian dollar and many other currencies against the US dollar.
US wealth rose $4.6 trillion, despite a global decline of $12.7 trillion, with Japan, Russia and the European Union countries showing the biggest drops, largely because of currency depreciation. Australia and Canada lost $1.5 trillion in wealth between them, a substantial drop for the two mid-sized economies, which are heavily dependent on resource extraction.
China, whose currency is loosely pegged to the dollar, saw a $1.5 trillion gain. But this has likely already evaporated, since the report is based on figures ending June 30, 2015 and the Chinese financial markets have plunged 25 percent since then, as the report’s foreword notes.
These disparities between countries, like the growing social disparities within countries, have immense significance for world politics. They are a major factor in the increasingly explosive character of international relations, particularly the conflicts between the major imperialist powers—the United States, Japan, Germany, France, Britain—and countries like Russia, China and Iran that are being targeted for their huge natural and human resources.
US imperialism uses both its preeminent military position and the role of the dollar, still the world’s main reserve currency, as weapons in seeking to offset its economic decline relative to its major rivals. America is both a social powder keg, with class tensions at home approaching the breaking point, and the most destabilizing force in world politics, seeking to maintain its position of global dominance by increasingly reckless and militaristic methods.

"Amazon became a byword this year for savage treatment of 

employees. Bezos joins several others in the top 15 notorious 

for low-wage exploitation, including four heirs to the Wal-

Mart retail empire, James, Alice, Christy and Samuel Robson 

Walton, and Phil Knight, chairman of Nike Inc., whose $24.4 

billion fortune is extracted from his international network of 

sports apparel-producing sweatshops."


OBAMA-CLINTONomics is a simple device - Serve the super rich and pass the cost of their looting and Wall Street crimes on to the backs of the last of the American middle-class!


"Of course, the wealth of the financial elite cannot come from nowhere. Ultimately, the continual infusion of asset bubbles is the form taken by a massive transfer of wealth, from the working class to the banks, investors and super-rich. The corollary to rise of the stock market is the endless demands, all over the world, for austerity, cuts in wages, attacks on health care and pensions."


“As a result, the share of wealth held by the richest 0.1 percent of the population grew from 17 percent in 2007 to 22 percent in 2012, while the wealth of the 400 richest families in the US has doubled since 2008.”

OBAMA-CLINTONomics and the final death of the American middle-class

"Obama expanded the Wall Street bailout, handing trillions of dollars to the criminals who wrecked the economy. He then utilized the financial meltdown to restructure the auto industry on the basis of brutal pay cuts, setting a precedent for the transformation of the US into a low-wage economy."

"In the midst of the deepest slump since the Great Depression, the administration starved state and city governments of resources, leading to the destruction of hundreds of thousands of education and public-sector jobs and the gutting of workers’ pensions. Obama’s Affordable Care Act set in motion the dismantling of employer-paid health insurance and massive cuts in the Medicare insurance system for the elderly."


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

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS ON HILLARY’S SERVITUDE TO OBAMA’S CRIMINAL CRONY BANKSTERS… their looting continues unabated.




"I think that the business model of Wall Street is fraud," said Sanders. "I think these guys drove us into the worst economic downturn in the modern history of America and I think they're at it again. I believe that when you have so few banks with so much power you have to ... break them up. That is not Hillary Clinton's position."




Wealth of America’s super-rich grows to $2.34 trillion

By Nick Barrickman 
3 October 2015
The wealth of the 400 richest Americans 
continues to soar, according to the results of 
the new Forbes 400 list, published annually 
by the business magazine of the same name. 
At $2.34 trillion, the total net worth for the multi-billionaires on the list set new records, displacing last year’s all-time high of $2.29 trillion.


OBAMA-CLINTONomics:

Did their crony banksters ultimately destroy the global economy?


Richest one percent controls 

nearly half of global wealth

 

In 2009, the total net worth of the Forbes 400 was $1.27 trillion. Today, nearly six years into the so-called economic “recovery” fostered by the Obama administration, the wealthiest Americans have nearly doubled their hoard. The total wealth of the richest 400 Americans managed to reach new heights even while financial markets have been roiled by tumultuous swings.
The Forbes report notes that in 2015, “It was 
harder than ever to join the 400. The price of 
entry this year was $1.7 billion, the highest

it’s been in the 33 years that Forbes has

racked American wealth.” Forbes makes note

that the wealth threshold was so high this year that 145 billionaires failed to make the list.
While a majority of billionaires have prospered, their wealth underwritten by the massive government bailouts of financial institutions and near-zero interest rates from the Federal Reserve, a significant fraction of the wealthy elite have lost ground in the turbulent stock markets of recent months.
The ratio of winners and losers among the billionaires was ten to one last year, but this year was much closer to 50-50. Forbes noted that the top three position-holders on the list, Microsoft’s Bill Gates, Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffett and Oracle’s Larry Ellison, each saw a drop in their total net worth of at least 5 percent in the last year. This did nothing to threaten the position of Gates, number one at $76 billion, or Buffett, number two at $62 billion, but Ellison’s third-place position, with $47.5 billion, left him “only” $500 million ahead of the fourth-place multi-billionaire, Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com.
The majority of those on the Forbes list were associated with some form of financial speculation, or with computer software and the Internet. According to the industry breakdown supplied by Forbes, its 400 include 126 engaged in investment, real estate and finance, 81 from computer technology and media, 36 from food and beverage, 32 from retail and fashion (including five members of the Walton family, owners of Wal-Mart), 31 from oil & gas, 20 from health care, 19 from miscellaneous services (including six members of the Pritzker family, owners of Hyatt Hotels), and 19 from sports and gaming.
This left only 35 listed as making their fortunes in manufacturing, automotive, construction, and logistics. The largest manufacturing fortune is the $7.4 billion of Harold Kohler, whose company makes toilets and other plumbing fixtures. Perhaps that is symbolic, given the state of manufacturing in the United States, once the world leader in industry, but no longer.
The growth of financial parasitism has underwritten the wealth of many on the Forbes 400. In 1982, the first Forbes 400 list saw figures directly involved in finance making up only 4.4 percent of the total wealth on the list. As of today, this group now makes up more than 21 percent of billionaires on the list.
Former Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, who has held the number one spot on the Forbes 400 for 22 years, has less than 13 percent of his fortune in stock in the company he founded. According toForbes, the majority of Gates’ wealth is bound up in Cascade, the software mogul’s investment firm, which specializes in “investing in stocks, bonds, private equity and real estate.”
Besides the well-known super-rich of Silicon Valley like Google’s Larry Page and Sergey Brin (with $33.3 billion and $32.6 billion, respectively) and Mark Zuckerberg, founder of the social media web site Facebook, the seventh wealthiest man in America with $40.3 billion in total assets, there are numerous other newly minted Internet billionaires, including the owners and co-owners of Uber, Airbnb, WhatsApp, LinkedIn, Twitter, SnapChat, GoPro and GoDaddy.com.
Jeffrey Bezos, owner of the online retailer Amazon, saw the largest gain in wealth for the year, making $16 billion in 2015, placing his total net worth at $47 billion and catapulting him to fourth place. Nearly half of Bezos’ gains came within a single day last July, when his company announced gains in the second quarter, leading to a speculative frenzy which bid up stock values for Amazon by over 18 percent.
Amazon became a byword this year for savage treatment of 

employees. Bezos joins several others in the top 15 notorious 

for low-wage exploitation, including four heirs to the Wal-

Mart retail empire, James, Alice, Christy and Samuel Robson

Walton, and Phil Knight, chairman of Nike Inc., whose $24.4 

billion fortune is extracted from his international network of 

sports apparel-producing sweatshops.
While safeguarding the ill-gotten wealth of the Forbes billionaires remains an ironclad principle of both the Republican and Democratic parties, working people throughout the US continue to suffer the brunt of attacks on their living standards. A US Census report released earlier this month shows that 14.8 percent of the US population lives in poverty; a figure that is unchanged from a year earlier. The Census findings show that 6.6 percent of the population lives in “deep poverty,” or less than half of the already unrealistically low official poverty line in the US.


Thursday, October 22, 2015

PAUL RYAN: Mexico and the Democrat Party's Advocate for AMNESTY to keep wages depressed

9) Immigration: Ryan has supported immigration reform bills that included amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants in the past. Last summer, he outlined a vision that included a pathway to citizenship, bolstered border security, and a fast-track to legal status for the children of illegal immigrants. “People say, ‘amnesty!’ No, it’s taking a problem that’s intractable, that’s been around forever, and trying to fix it in a way that as best guarantees as you can that we’re not going to be in the same [situation] 10 years from now,” he told Hillsdale College students, according to National Review.

OBAMA DECLARES A NATIONAL WEEK OF CELEBRATION TO HONOR MEXICO'S INVASION, LOOTING, MURDER, RAPE AND VOTING DEM FOR MORE!

Warning: This isn't an article from The Onion.  Obama's Department of Education is proposing that schools spend a week celebrating illegal aliens, including an "undocumented immigrant awareness day."  Can "Celebrate D...

Obama's 'Hispanicazation' of America



January 10, 2011

By: James Walsh
Casting a shadow on economic recovery efforts in the United States is the cost of illegal immigration that consumes U.S. taxpayer dollars for education, healthcare, social welfare benefits, and criminal justice. Illegal aliens (or more politically correct, “undocumented immigrants”) with ties to Mexican drug cartels are contributing to death and destruction on U.S. lands along the southern border.

While the declining job market in the United States may be discouraging some would-be border crossers, a flow of illegal aliens continues unabated, with many entering the United States as drug-smuggling “mules.”


MUSLIMS: THE WORLD'S BARBARIANS! - Muslim migrants in Europe torch own tents to protest one day delay in processing

Tiny Slovenia, with barely 2 million people, is being overrun by Muslims claiming to be refugees and expecting the infidels to provide them services promptly. When Hungary closed its border, Slovenia became the new route to Austria and Germany, but t...

Muslim migrants in Europe torch own tents to protest one day delay in processing

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/10/muslim_migrants_in_europe_torch_own_tents_to_protest_one_delay_in_processing.html#ixzz3pJDA6Sh3
Follow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on Facebook

MEXICO INVADES FOR DEMOCRAT PARTY'S AMNESTY, JOBS AND ANCHOR BABY WELFARE - Border agent: Illegals 'know that they will be released'

Border agent: Illegals 'know that they will be released'

A border agent who patrols the Rio Grand Valley in Texas told the Senate Wednesday that illegal immigrants continue to stream into the U.S. from Mexico because they are confident they'll be released quickly by U.S. authorities.

"Most believe that they will either not be caught, or even if they are caught, they will not be deported back to their home country," Agent Chris Cabrera told the Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee in prepared testimony. "The UACs and family groups we detain are acutely aware of the fact we will not hold them until they are adjudicated."


Income inequality grows FOUR TIMES FASTER under Obama than Bush.


“Behind the orgy of profit-making and stock speculation sustained by the policies of the Obama administration and the Federal Reserve, broad masses of the American people remain in the grip of the deepest social crisis since the Great Depression.”




SANCTUARY LAWS ….. Sanctuary cities where illegals are above the law have now become sanctuary states!

THE DAILY EXPANSION OF THE MEXICAN WELFARE STATE IN AMERICA…. they also get the jobs and commit most of the murders!





AMERICA: NO DAMNED LEGAL NEED APPLY!

Amnesty and open borders …. it’s all and only about keeping wages DEPRESSED!



"Any grant of legal status will serve as a magnet to prospective illegal immigrants and further depress employment opportunities and wages for African-Americans," Kirsanow wrote Obama in August. "Given that the labor force participation rate is at an historic low, the unemployment rate is 6.2 percent, and there has been a precipitous decline in household wealth, the timing for such a grant of legal status could not be worse."





CORRUPT AFL-CIO ASSAULTING AMERICAN WORKERS WITH ENDLESS HORDES OF DUES PAYING ILLEGALS! - Anti-sanctuary city bill promotes 'hate,' AFL-CIO says

Anti-sanctuary city bill promotes 'hate,' AFL-CIO says

SANCTUARY LAWS ….. Sanctuary cities where illegals are above the law have now become sanctuary states!

THE DAILY EXPANSION OF THE MEXICAN WELFARE STATE IN AMERICA…. they also get the jobs and commit most of the murders!




AMERICA: NO DAMNED LEGAL NEED APPLY!

Amnesty and open borders …. it’s all and only about keeping wages DEPRESSED!



"Any grant of legal status will serve as a magnet to prospective illegal immigrants and further depress employment opportunities and wages for African-Americans," Kirsanow wrote Obama in August. "Given that the labor force participation rate is at an historic low, the unemployment rate is 6.2 percent, and there has been a precipitous decline in household wealth, the timing for such a grant of legal status could not be worse."

The Democrat Party, Mexico, the U.S. tax-supported Mexican fascist party of LA RAZA, “The Race”, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, corrupt unions and ALL AMERICAN BILLIONAIRES!

………. IT’S ALL ABOUT KEEPING WAGES DEPRESSED AND PROFIT MARGINS AND CEO BONUSES SOARING!




OBAMANOMICS: How Barack Obama Is Bankrupting You and Enriching His Wall Street Friends, Corporate Lobbyists, and Union Bosses…and Muslim Dictators