Thursday, October 15, 2015

WALMART LEADS WALL STREET IN THE WAR ON THE AMERICAN WORKER - Walmart downgrade reflects depth of social crisis facing US workers

Walmart downgrade reflects depth of social crisis facing US workers

"Walmart’s financial problems are above all a reflection of the devastating impact of years of wage-cutting and austerity on its largely working class clientele. 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."



OBAMA-CLINTONomics…. will it destroy this nation?



THE RISE of BARACK OBAMA and the FALL of AMERICA: WHO WILL ULTIMATELY PAY FOR HIS LIES AND CRIMES?



Rather than Hope and Change, Obama is delivering

corporate socialism to America, all while claiming he’s

battling corporate America. It’s corporate welfare and

regulatory robbery—it’s Obamanomics.





These are only the most striking of a barrage of numbers reported in recent weeks, demonstrating that for the US financial aristocracy, the Crash of 2008 has been used to engineer a historic redistribution of wealth.



THE COMING GLOBAL MELTDOWN:


a nation pays the ultimate price for OBAMA-CLINTONomics and the death of the American middle-class
 



OBAMA-CLINTONomics: Their cronies loot…

 “This is Obama’s new “middle class,” working for half the wages of their grandparents and barely keeping one step out of a homeless shelter.”


"Corporate profits are at their highest share of GDP since World War II, while the portion of national economic output going to labor has fallen to the lowest postwar level." 



Walmart downgrade reflects depth of social crisis facing US workers
By Barry Grey 
15 October 2015
Walmart, the world’s biggest retailer by revenue, stunned Wall Street investors and analysts Wednesday by reporting that its full-year sales would be flat this year and its earnings per share would fall by 6-12 percent in the next fiscal year.
The firm's top officers issued the gloomy projection at Walmartís annual investor day in New York. Earlier in the year, the firm had predicted a 1-2 percent sales increase, and Wall Street analysts had forecast a 4 percent rise in earnings per share for the upcoming fiscal year.


The news prompted a near-panic selloff of 

Walmart shares. By the close of trading, 

Walmart stock had plunged 10 percent, the 

companyís worst-ever one-day price decline. 

The collapse erased some $20 billion from 

the firm's market capitalization, bringing the fall in the market value of the company so far this year to 30 percent—the equivalent of $79 
billion.
Walmart’s debacle cut some 40 points from the Dow Jones industrial average, which ended the day with a loss of 157 points, down 0.92 percent.
Walmart CEO Doug McMillon attributed the negative projections to an investment program costing several billion dollars to raise the base wage of new hires to $10 and develop the company’s e-commerce capabilities, as well as the impact of the stronger US dollar on overseas profits.
Company officials sought to reassure the financial markets by asserting that sales would rise over the next three years by 3-4 percent annually and earnings per share would grow by 5-10 percent by fiscal 2019, bringing profits back above their current level. They also announced a $20 billion stock buyback program over the next two years.
These assurances, however, failed to allay doubts about the profitability going forward of the company, which employs 1.4 million people in the US alone.
Walmart’s financial problems are above all a reflection of the 
devastating impact of years of wage-cutting and austerity on 
its largely working class clientele. 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.
In his remarks to the investors, CEO McMillon indirectly pointed to the decline in the purchasing power of large numbers of American workers. He made a point of describing the company’s efforts to attract wealthier customers, saying Walmart would focus on “appealing to a blend of income levels,” including middle- and upper-middle-income households.
The underlying crisis and stagnation in the US economy reflected in Walmart’s negative results were seen as well in other economic data released this week. On Wednesday, the Commerce Department reported that retail sales in September, on an annually adjusted basis, rose a mere 0.1 percent from August. Economists had expected an increase of 0.2 percent.
Excluding motor vehicles and parts, sales at other retailers actually fell 0.3 percent last month. At the same time, overall sales for August were revised downward to unchanged from the previous estimate of a 0.2 percent increase.
In a further sign of mounting deflationary pressures in the US and internationally, the Labor Department reported Wednesday that US producer prices in September recorded their biggest decline in eight months, falling by 0.5 percent. In the 12 months through September, the producer price index fell 1.1 percent.
The September jobs report released at the beginning of October showed a sharp decline in US job creation, with only 142,000 new jobs recorded, well below the forecast of 201,000 and 40 percent lower than the average monthly increase for the previous year.
Major layoffs continue to be announced across various sectors of the economy. On Monday, the Philadelphia-based chemical company FMC announced it would eliminate 800 to 850 jobs, more than 10 percent of its 7,000-strong workforce. On Tuesday, Twitter said it planned to lay off about 8 percent of its workforce, affecting as many as 336 workers.


THE DEMOCRAT PARTY'S PHONY POPULISM AS THEY PROMISE ILLEGALS AMNESTY, AMERICAN JOBS AND MORE WELFARE! Bernie Sanders, the Democratic Party and socialism

Bernie Sanders, the Democratic Party and socialism

The country has been headed by the 

Democratic Obama administration for the 

past seven years, a period of record growth of 

social inequality. Since 2009, Obama’s first 

year in office, 95 percent of income gains have

gone to the top one percent.

Bernie Sanders, the Democratic Party and socialism

15 October 2015
The Democratic Party debate on Tuesday night reflected the growing nervousness of the political establishment and the ruling class as a whole over the explosive class tensions building up within the United States.
In one form or another, all five of the candidates participating in the event made use of left-sounding rhetoric in regard to economic issues. Martin O’Mally, the former governor of Maryland, spoke of “an economic injustice that threatens to tear our country apart.” Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the current front-runner, proclaimed that her campaign would center on raising wages. At one point she said it was necessary to “save capitalism from itself.”
Bernie Sanders, the self-described “democratic socialist” senator from Vermont, repeated his calls for a “political revolution” to “take back our government from a handful of billionaires and create the vibrant democracy we know we can and should have.” There is an obvious incongruity in criticism of inequality coming from the field of Democratic presidential candidates. 

The country has been headed by 

the Democratic Obama administration for the

past seven years, a period of record growth of 

social inequality. Since 2009, Obama’s first 

year in office, 95 percent of income gains have

gone to the top one percent.
As Tuesday’s debate underscored, the Democrats are endlessly repackaging themselves in a non-stop marketing effort, hoping to rekindle support from a disillusioned and alienated public by adopting a new brand, slogan, etc. Virtually no effort is made to align today’s positions with yesterday’s or reconcile their words with their deeds.
Now, this party of Wall Street and American imperialism is scrambling to adapt itself rhetorically to the reality of a working class that is being radicalized, the better to carry out the ruling class’ policies of austerity and war.
At the center of these efforts is Sanders, who has over the past several months risen rapidly in the polls, attracting crowds of thousands and even tens of thousands to his rallies. Between April and October, Sanders’ national poll numbers have increased from about four percent (compared to Clinton’s 60 percent) to about 25 percent (compared to Clinton’s 40 percent). He has taken the lead in New Hampshire and is tied with Clinton in Iowa.
The popularity of the Sanders campaign has surprised media commentators, who take it for granted that a “socialist” label dooms any political figure in the United States. In fact, Sanders has garnered support precisely because of his appeal to a deep and growing hatred of the capitalist system.
In terms of his actual politics, however, Sanders proposes nothing that is genuinely socialist, or even radical, for that matter. On Tuesday, he repeated his calls for a series of modest reforms, including raising the minimum wage, investing in infrastructure, establishing equal pay for women, and making public college and universities free through a tax on financial transactions.
Aside from a vague call to “break up” the largest banks, Sanders did not propose any measures that address the relations of production or the economic dominance of the capitalist class. There was no suggestion that industries or banks should be nationalized, a basic component of socialist politics. Nor did he explicitly call for a redistribution of wealth.
Even within the tradition of American politics of an earlier period, Sanders’ proposals are thoroughly conventional. Most, if not all of them, would fit comfortably within the program of the Democratic Party or even the Republican Party 50 years ago.
Compare his statements to the platform of the Socialist Party in 1936, then headed by the reformist Norman Thomas. It proposed the “social ownership and democratic control of the banks, mines, railroads, the power industry and all key industries.” The party’s platform in 1912—when Eugene Debs won 6 percent of the national vote—called for the nationalization of major industries, the requisitioning of food and storage warehouses to reduce the cost of living, and the collective ownership of the banking and currency system.
Sanders proposes to do the impossible: ameliorate social inequality without touching the foundation of the power of the capitalist class.
As he rises in the polls, Sanders very deliberately seeks to reassure the other main center of power in the United States—the military-intelligence apparatus. On Tuesday, he declared that he is “prepared to take this country into war if that is necessary.” Insisting that he is “not a pacifist,” Sanders pointed to his support for the war in Kosovo under Clinton, the war in Afghanistan launched by the Bush administration, and the Obama administration’s present war policy in Syria and Iraq.
These statements followed on previous comments that he would make use of drones, Special Forces “and more,” and that the United States “should have the strongest military in the world.” On Tuesday, he added a call for the prosecution of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Sanders’ support for imperialist war abroad says far more about his politics than his proposals for social reforms at home. All of the wars he backs are being waged in the interest of the ruling class and its program of global domination. It is impossible to oppose the economic policy of the corporate and financial elite at home and support its policy abroad.
The pro-war positions of Sanders are of a piece with his economic nationalism. His criticisms of social inequality are invariably tied to denunciations of “our disastrous trade policies.” Sanders lines up squarely with the trade union bureaucracy and sections of the Democratic Party in seeking to divert working class anger over layoffs and unemployment along nationalist channels, which serve to pit American workers against their class brothers and sisters around the world. At the same time, this “America-first” appeal deflects attention from the real source of workers’ oppression, the capitalist system, and lines up US workers behind their American bosses.
As for Sanders’ “political revolution,” it boils down to nothing more than expanding voter turnout behind the Democratic presidential candidate, whomever that is. Thus, he spoke Tuesday of the necessity “to have one of the larger voter turnouts in the world, not the lowest.” He added that “Democrats at the White House on down will win when there is excitement and a large voter turnout, and that is what this campaign is doing.”
It could not be clearer. Sanders’ primary function is to prevent mounting social opposition from taking an independent political form.
Those organizations that have promoted the Sanders campaign—from sections of the trade union apparatus to groups such as Socialist Alternative and the International Socialist Organization—do so with this same conscious aim: Not to advance the cause of socialism, but to demoralize opposition by smothering and derailing the striving of the working class to break free from the capitalist two-party system.
The experience in Greece over the past year has shown the consequences of this type of politics. The Coalition of the Radical Left (Syriza), which came to power pledging to end austerity, is now administering a new round of austerity measures, more brutal than those that went before, dictated by the banks and the European Union. Sanders and his backers play a parallel role in the United States.
To advance its interests, the working class requires an entirely different perspective. Millions of workers and youth are coming into conflict with the capitalist system, and socialism is once again a specter haunting the ruling class.
The fight for socialism, however, means the international unification of the working class in a struggle against the ruling class and all its representatives. It means the expropriation of the banks, financial institutions and major corporations and a radical redistribution of wealth. All the basic social rights of the working class—including the right to a job, a livable income, health care, education, a secure retirement—are in direct conflict with a social system that subordinates everything to the dictates of the corporate and financial aristocracy.
A genuine socialist program can be realized only when the working class is organized and mobilized as an independent political force, in the United States and internationally, to take political power and reorganize economic life on the basis of social need, not private profit.
Joseph Kishore