for all,” raised and increasingly abandoned by a section of the Democratic Party.
It cites Milton Friedman and Margaret Thatcher to promote the virtues of
“economic freedom,” i.e., the unrestrained operation of the capitalist market, and
to denounce all social reforms, business regulations, tax increases or anything
else that impinges on the oligarchy’s self-enrichment."
In its coverage of the General Motors plant closure announcement, the has stressed that one of the central aims of the job massacre is to intimidate 140,000 GM, Ford and Fiat Chrysler workers whose contracts are expiring next summer and break their determination to win significant improvements in wages and working conditions from the highly profitable automakers.
Destroyed for Nothing
The closing of GM’s Detroit plant—erected at the expense of a vibrant urban neighborhood—is a final twist of the knife in a tale of displacement and destruction.November 28, 2018
General Motor’s announcement that it’s cutting thousands of jobs
and closing several plants has met intense criticism because the
company was the beneficiary of a $50 billion government bailout
in 2009—which wound up costing taxpayers $11 billion—even as
the government awarded the United Auto Workers’ health-care
fund a 17.5 percent stake in the restructured company. Like many
big American companies, GM has been the recipient of
government-subsidized largesse over several decades. One
particular piece of this history is especially noteworthy now.
Nearly 40 years ago, in one of the most egregious cases of eminent
domain abuse in American history, GM built a plant on land seized
from homeowners and businesses in Detroit, obliterating a multi-
ethnic neighborhood known as Poletown—all for a plant that will
now be shuttered so that GM can invest somewhere else in new
manufacturing facilities.
Beset by foreign competition, America’s automakers began retrenching in the late 1970s, closing manufacturing facilities in and around Detroit even as the city struggled to rebound from the riots of 1967. Dodge had closed a giant plant in Hamtramck, a suburb that adjoins the Poletown neighborhood, and when GM announced that it wanted to build a new plant somewhere in America with modern industrial technology—though it was closing plants elsewhere—Detroit officials pleaded for an opportunity to find a site for the new facility. Mayor Coleman Young came up with a plan: seize some 1,500 homes and 144 businesses in Poletown, a low-income community of 3,500 where Polish immigrants had once settled. By the early 1980s, Poletown was a more diverse neighborhood, housing older Poles but also more recent immigrants and black Detroit residents. As the city deteriorated, Poletown remained relatively stable. “There is no place for us to go, no place we want to go,” two elderly residents told the New York Times in 1980, to no avail. To Detroit officials, Poletown’s appeal was its proximity to the Dodge site, providing some 465 acres for GM—if officials could just move out those inconveniently located businesses and people. To help make it happen, in April 1980 the Michigan legislature passed its infamous “quick-take” law, providing that government agencies could seize land deemed necessary for a “public purpose” and determine later how much to compensate the private landowners. That law accelerated the process of clearing out Poletown.
The neighborhood did not go down without a fight, however. Homeowners and their advocates mounted legal challenges, refused government offers, and hunkered down. Some patrolled their property, brandishing weapons and daring the government to come in and take their property. What happened next was chilling. To “encourage” homeowners to leave, Detroit began withdrawing city services. The city had managed to empty out some buildings, such as apartment houses, by paying off renters, who had little stake in the neighborhood. A few elderly residents took the money for their homes and moved on, creating a landscape dotted with abandoned buildings marked with a blue X—a prescription for chaos, which quickly ensued. Looters moved in and, in a strategy that became all too familiar in the 1970s in places like the South Bronx and Bushwick, they proceed to strip the buildings of sinks, wiring, pipes, furnaces—and then burn them. “There was virtually no trash pickup, no police presence, and before long the once-quiet neighborhood was a jumble of looters and demolition crews during the day and arsonists and fire trucks by night,” wrote filmmaker George Cosetti, who witnessed the neighborhood’s last days while filming the documentary Poletown Lives! “The night air was always smoke-filled and people slept with guns nearby.”
Residents sought to have the quick-take law declared unconstitutional, but the Michigan Supreme Court ruled 5-2 that taking private property and handing it over to a business to provide jobs for the unemployed and taxes to pay for city services qualified as a legitimate public purpose. One dissenting judge did warn that justifying government seizure of land in order to create jobs was an extension of eminent domain that “seriously jeopardized the security of all private property ownership.” Even then, however, some residents hung on, forming a redoubt in Immaculate Conception church, a focal point of much of the resistance, until police arrived to cart away the group, which included a handful of elderly Polish women.
General Motors opened the new plant, Detroit-Hamtramck, in 1985. It employed some 4,500 workers, about 70 percent of the original projection of 6,500 jobs. But the plant fell far short of the claims that city officials used to justify the property seizures. They had envisioned Poletown as a crucial step in a Detroit renaissance—the plant would attract other carmakers and auto-accessories manufacturers to the area, they believed, and spark a jobs boom. These scenarios never materialized. Detroit’s economy continued to decline, people fled the city, and today Detroit, with some 670,000 residents, is about half its size in 1980.
In 2004, Michigan’s Supreme Court overturned the “quick-take” provision that allowed the state to seize Poletown before demonstrating a public purpose for the land. General Motors got 34 years out of the plant, thanks to a $200 million government subsidy (what it cost Detroit to clear Poletown). No one can say whether Poletown, which had existed as a vibrant neighborhood for more than 100 years, would have endured longer, serving as at least one bulwark against the decline of the city, had GM not moved in. But neighborhoods have a way of outlasting manufacturing plants. That’s one reason we shouldn’t destroy them willy-nilly for the sake of a few jobs—or even a few thousand.
Steven Malanga is the senior editor of City Journal, the George M. Yeager Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, and the author of Shakedown: The Continuing Conspiracy Against the American Taxpayer.
EYE ON THE NEWS
November 26, 2018
Growth for Whose Sake?
There’s more to life than rising consumption.November 26, 2018
Economy, finance, and budgets
Should economic growth be policymakers’ top priority? In The Once and Future Worker, published earlier this month, I argue no. Growth is important, to be sure, and rising material living standards depend on it. But I propose what I call the
Working Hypothesis: that a labor market in which
workers can support strong families and
communities is the central determinant of long-
term prosperity, and should be the central focus of
public policy. “While growth is necessary to a
prosperous society,” I write, “it is not sufficient.
Not all growth is equally beneficial, and the
policy choices that yield the most immediate
short-term growth don’t necessarily prepare the
ground for sustained economic and social
progress.”
Michael Strain and Jim Pethokoukis of the American Enterprise Institute have taken offense to this suggestion, and have launched a series of heated rebuttals in defense of the honor of economic growth. “The only thing [the book] really demonstrates is that it’s devilishly difficult to make sense out of nonsense,” writes Pethokoukis. “And trying to do so forces one to embrace the absurd.” They accuse the book of being “anti-globalization,” though the first sentence of its chapter on globalization observes that “practical objections to ‘globalization’ tend to be quite narrow.” The book, again, purportedly “downplay[s] growth,” though its discussion of how best to understand prosperity emphasizes that “this isn’t to say that economic growth isn’t important; of course it is.”
These critics are fighting the last war, without showing a clear sense of where the current dispute lies. Both men insist repeatedly that growth leads to rising material living standards, especially when paired with rising redistribution, a point no one is questioning here. This is the classic idea of the “economic pie,” which policymakers seek to expand so that everyone can have a bigger slice. The Once and Future Worker’s core argument is that while this view—which I call Economic Piety—is self-evidently correct on its own terms, it is incorrect in the unstated assumption that present consumer welfare is the correct measure of prosperity.
Rather, I contend, work matters. People’s well-being is more closely tied to their productive capacity, and their commensurate ability to support their families and contribute to their communities, than it is to their level of consumption. Further, growth is itself an emergent property of a healthy society; insofar as the goal is to maximize long-term growth, all segments of society must remain engaged in a broad-based economy. We should not simply adopt the policies that appear most growth-friendly at a given moment in time, because ensuring wide participation in economic productivity is foundational to a healthy society, not a nice-to-have byproduct.
So when Strain and Pethokoukis affirm their correctness from within their own consumption-maximizing perspective, they miss the point. They repeatedly attribute positions to the book that it does not take, avoid quoting from it, criticize none of its actual policy proposals, and fail even to acknowledge the existence of the question whether Economic Piety or the Working Hypothesis offers a better way to understand prosperity. Compare Pethokoukis’s claim that I argue “globalization has brought only stagnant living standards” for the non-“elite” with the book’s text: “we got exactly what we thought we wanted: strong overall economic growth and a large GDP, rising material living standards…” But as the book’s next sentence notes, “we gave up something we took for granted: a labor market in which the nation’s diverse array of families and communities could support themselves.”
Focusing on concrete points of disagreement might help us avoid talking past each other. How, for example, should we understand the present condition of the American working class—roughly, those who have not earned a college degree? If our standard is material consumption, they have never been better off: virtually all of them have microwave ovens, mobile phones, and other consumer products. If our standard is supporting their families and communities through productive work, however, the past decade has been the worst of the post-war era. So, is the working class thriving or not? I think the evidence points clearly toward a crisis. The working class is beset by withdrawal from the labor force, family collapse, rising dependence on government programs, skyrocketing substance abuse and suicide rates, and declining life expectancy. On what basis should we say things are going well?
Second, is all growth of equal value? An aggregate measure of GDP or productivity obscures the question of who is producing or becoming more productive. If the least productive 20 percent of a nation’s workers drop out of the labor force entirely, but the most productive 20 percent double their productivity, GDP will be higher. Is the nation better off? I would say no. Do my critics disagree?
Regarding globalization, Strain and Pethokoukis take particular issue with my suggestion that trade and immigration may not be always beneficial. My view is that they can be beneficial, but balance matters. An international market in which America imports $50 billion of cars from Japan and sends back $50 billion of airplanes is healthy. But if we send back $50 billion of IOUs (i.e., Treasury bonds) instead, American workers lose and the American economy suffers. Do my critics see these transactions as comparable, and voice no preference between them? Likewise, immigrants bring many positive assets to America, but adding unskilled workers to a labor market struggling to accommodate those already here is a mistake. Do Strain and Pethokoukis believe high levels of unskilled immigration have been and will continue to be superior to a skills-based system, either for American workers, or our long-run economic growth?
Obviously, there is much to discuss. I hope Strain and Pethokoukis will answer these questions and perhaps pose some of their own, but that in doing so they will take the time to understand what The Once and Future Worker actually says, and how it differs from their own views.
Oren Cass is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and the author of the new book, The Once and Future Worker (November 2018).
America’s Thanksgivings
22 November 2018
In an effort to give a
livelier and more in-depth picture of modern life, American novelists such as
John Dos Passos—The 42nd Parallel (1930), 1919 (1932)
and The Big Money (1936)—introduced “newsreel” sections
including headlines, advertisements and popular songs. We hope the following
selections will provide some sense of American reality on Thanksgiving Day
2018.
* * * * *
— “There
aren’t many downsides to America’s humming economy. ” (Wall
Street Journal)
— “On his days
off from his $7.50-an-hour job as a cook at the Chicken Hut restaurant in
Riverdale, Ga. [Georgia] , Laugudria Screven Jr., 23,
travels more than 25 miles across Atlanta to sell plasma. By offering up his
arm to a technician’s needle twice a week at $50 a shot, he scrapes together
enough to pay his $360 rent.
“Yet donating plasma
takes a toll on Screven’s body, leaving him drowsy and weak. And even with the
extra income, he says he sometimes can’t afford to eat more than once a day.
Often he comes home to a refrigerator that contains little more than mustard,
ketchup and peanut butter.
“‘I sell my blood to
pay my bills,’ he said, rubbing his arm as he waited for a bus in East
Point, Ga. ‘It’s kind of messed up. If I were paid a fair wage, I
wouldn’t have to go through this.’” (Los Angeles Times)
— “Set on 40
acres in Newport, Rhode Island, Castle Hill Inn, a Relais & Châteaux
property, provides guests with a classic New England Thanksgiving. Chef Lou
Rossi—an alum of NYC’s three-Michelin-starred Per Se—showcases the local
harvest with appetizers like Native littleneck clams, Matunuck oysters and
chilled white shrimp, plus herb roasted Helger’s Farm turkey with sage gravy
and cranberry sauce, and a selection of pies, pastries and tarts. The hotel
also features a spa, the Retreat at Castle Hill by Farmaesthetics, and has a
selection of romantic and rustic rooms and cottages available by the beach,
overlooking the harbor, and on its namesake hill. [A room in the
Superior Beach House is $1,091.45 a night including
taxes and fees.] (Town & Country)
— “Hundreds of
people in need lined Bleecker Street in downtown Utica[New York] to
receive a free Thanksgiving day meal to make with their families. … This
year roughly 700 meals were donated, an increase of about 200 from last year.
In Utica 1 in 3 people are living in poverty, according to DataUSA.” (WKTV )
— “Despite a
relatively good economy, local food pantries are seeing a double-digit increase
in the number of hungry residents. Des Moines [Iowa] pantries normally expect
about a 3.5 percent increase each month, compared to the previous year. But for
the last six months, that increase has more than tripled in the metro area,
said Rev. Sarai Schnucker Rice, executive director of the Des Moines Area
Religious Council, which oversees the network of 14 local pantries.” (Des
Moines Register)
— “Though major
cities, such as Dayton [Ohio], are often thought of as having the most
households facing hardship, several of the Gem City’s suburbs actually rival
it. Thousands of families around the Miami Valley are not necessarily in
poverty but are still struggling to get by financially, according to the United
Way report.” (Dayton Daily News)
— “Three
dynastic wealth families—the Waltons, the Kochs, and the Mars—have seen their
wealth increase nearly 6,000 percent since 1982. Meanwhile,
median household wealth over the same period went down by 3 percent. …
“The median family in
the United States owns just over $80,000 in household wealth. The richest
person in the United States (and the world), Jeff Bezos, has accumulated a
fortune nearly 2 million times that amount. The Bezos fortune expanded by $78.5
billion just in the last year to $160 billion. Even at the recently increased
wage of $15/hour, a full-time Amazon worker would need to toil for 2.5 million
years to generate this much money.” (Institute for Policy Studies)
— “Gone are
lucrative manufacturing positions [in Indianapolis, Indiana]that
could elevate a family into the middle class, even without higher education.
Those jobs were in city neighborhoods. They offered salaries high enough to pay
for homes, send kids to college, and build up savings accounts. And there were
tons of them. At their peaks, the General Motors stamping plant employed 5,600
people, Western Electric had 8,000 workers, and RCA had 8,200.
“But today, scattered
brownfields—some with crumbling buildings, some vacant lots—are the only
remnants of those once-bustling factories. …
“Stefanie Bell and
Steven Pedrazoli—and their 8-year-old son, Chance—are living that new reality.
Both parents have regularly worked, but the family is homeless. They’ve been
living since April at Dayspring Center at 1537 Central Ave.
“Bell, 37, a server,
has uncertain wages because she relies on tips and a $2.13 hourly wage that
barely covers taxes. During some shifts, the money at Primanti Bros. restaurant
downtown is good. During others, factoring in $3.50 for a round-trip IndyGo bus
fare, it’s barely worth showing up. The night before meeting with IBJ, Bell
made just $30 in tips, despite working 5 p.m. to close.” (Indianapolis
Business Journal)
— “There are a
lot of things in life you might expect to cost $150,000—just probably not a
Thanksgiving dinner. And yet, that’s exactly what Old Homestead, a New York
City steakhouse, is offering this year with what it bills as the most expensive
Thanksgiving dinner in history, topping the record set by the $76,000 dinner
the restaurant offered last year.
“This year’s dinner,
which at a total price of $150,000 is nearly three times more than the average
U.S. household income, comes complete with all of the world’s finest
ingredients, as well as keys to a 2018 Maserati Levante nestled inside a
$135-per-pound free-range, organic turkey sprinkled with gold
flakes.” (Yahoo Finance)
— “Near where he
slept on a Salinas [California] sidewalk Monday night, David Rodriguez, 39,
regularly gets meals at Dorothy’s Kitchen in Salinas’ Chinatown. He
has not gone to the nonprofit’s Thanksgiving festivity before, but he plans on
going for the first time Thursday.
“Born and raised in the
Salinas Valley, Rodriguez grew up going to his grandmother’s for Thanksgiving.
Homeless since 2012, Rodriguez said he considers many others in Chinatown—a
neighborhood often synonymous with poverty—like his family. The
opportunity to share his childhood tradition with his new family would mean a
lot to him, he said.”(The Californian)
— “The 8th Annual
Readers’ Choice Survey from Business Jet Travelerprovides an
interesting look into why people fly privately, what they want in their private
jets, where they are going, who they fly with, their favorite aircraft and
more. … First some good news. If flying privately and planning to
fly privately are signs of a strong economy, readers are quite optimistic.
While 45% of respondents said they flew about the same amount as the previous
year, 22% said they flew more and 8% said they flew much more, compared to 14%
who flew a bit less and 12% who flew much less. Looking ahead, 44% of the
magazine’s readers said they will fly about the same during the next 12 months,
34% said they will fly a bit more and 11% will fly much more, compared to just
11% who predict they will fly less.” (Forbes)
— “Last August,
Destini Johnson practically danced out of jail, after landing there for two
months on drug charges. She bubbled with excitement about her new freedom and
returning home to her parents in Muncie, Ind. She even talked about plans to
find a job.
“Eight months later,
Johnson, 27, lay in a coma, silent except for the beeping of machines. She
looked small and pale, buried in a tangle of hospital bedsheets and tubes,
after suffering a dozen or so strokes as a result of her latest opioid
overdose.
“Her mother, Katiena
Johnson, kept vigil at the intensive care unit at Ball Memorial Hospital in
Muncie every day, fretting not only about whether her daughter would live, or
how much brain damage she’d suffered, but also how to pay for the myriad costs
resulting from the latest harrowing chapter of Destini’s opioid addiction.
Katiena Johnson says her daughter is regaining consciousness and is out of the
ICU.” (NPR)
— “We are
especially reminded on Thanksgiving of how the virtue of gratitude enables us
to recognize, even in adverse situations, the love of God in every person,
every creature, and throughout nature. Let us be mindful of the reasons we are
grateful for our lives, for those around us, and for our communities. We also
commit to treating all with charity and mutual respect, spreading the spirit of
Thanksgiving throughout our country and across the world.” (Donald
J. Trump’s Presidential Proclamation on Thanksgiving Day,November
20, 2018)
— “MAKE AMERICA
GREAT AGAIN! AMERICA FIRST! …
“There are a lot of
CRIMINALS in the [immigrant] Caravan. We will stop them.
Catch and Detain! Judicial Activism, by people who know nothing about security
and the safety of our citizens, is putting our country in great danger. Not
good!” (Donald J. Trump’s tweets, November 21)
— “Some vehicles
made it out in time the day the Camp Fire [in northern California] ignited.
Others became grenades after being hit by flaming embers. The worst of it may
have happened in a town called Paradise, approximate population 26,000. ‘I
was driving down Neal Road, and the houses by the horse stables were already on
fire—the side of the road was on fire as we were driving through,’ said
David Cuen, a Paradise resident who I met at a tent encampment of Camp Fire
survivors in a Walmart parking lot in Chico. Neal Road is one of only three
roads from Paradise with access to Highway 99. It was one of the few ways out: ‘I
look in my rear-view mirror, count back 10 cars, and the 10th or
15th car, it blew up. The flames had overwhelmed all the cars by
it. And the cops were making people get in cars that had room. So, you’re
talking four to five people in each car.’ Cuen spent the week after
escaping the fire sharing a tent with his wife and her family.” (Slate)
* * * * *
Vast popular hardship
and suffering, on the one hand, and almost indescribable wealth and social
indifference, on the other. Two parties of the corporate oligarchy, dedicated
to war and political reaction. The impossible economic and political conditions
must produce sooner rather than later the greatest social upheavals in American
history.
"A series of recent polls in the US and Europe have shown a sharp
growth of popular disgust with capitalism and support for socialism. In May of
2017, in a survey conducted by the Union of European Broadcasters of people
aged 18 to 35, more than half said they would participate in a “large-scale
uprising.” Nine out of 10 agreed with the statement, “Banks and money rule the
world.”
"A series of recent polls in the US and Europe have shown a sharp
growth of popular disgust with capitalism and support for socialism. In May of
2017, in a survey conducted by the Union of European Broadcasters of people
aged 18 to 35, more than half said they would participate in a “large-scale
uprising.” Nine out of 10 agreed with the statement, “Banks and money rule the
world.”
"The ruling
class was particularly terrified by the teachers’ walkouts earlier
this year because the biggest strikes were organized by
rank-and-file educators in a rebellion against the unions,
reflecting the weakening grip of the pro-corporate organizations
that have suppressed the class struggle for decades."
“The yearly income of a typical US household dropped by a massive 12 percent, or $6,400, in the six years between 2007 and 2013. This is just one of the findings of the 2013 Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances released Thursday, which documentsa sharp decline in working class living standards and a further
concentration of wealth in the hands of the rich and the super-rich.”
"The American phenomenon of record stock values fueling an ever greater concentration of wealth at the very top of society, while the economy is starved of productive investment, the social infrastructure crumbles, and working class living standards are driven down by entrenched unemployment, wage-cutting and government austerity policies, is part of a broader global process."
"A defining expression of this crisis is the dominance of financial speculation and parasitism, to the point where a narrow international financial aristocracy plunders society’s resources in order to further enrich itself."
White House report on socialism
The
specter of Marx haunts the American ruling class
6 November 2018
Last month, the Council
of Economic Advisers, an agency of the Trump White House, released an
extraordinary report titled “The Opportunity Costs of Socialism.” The report
begins with the statement: “Coincident with the 200th anniversary of Karl
Marx’s birth, socialism is making a comeback in American political discourse.
Detailed policy proposals from self-declared socialists are gaining support in
Congress and among much of the younger electorate.”
The very fact that the
US government officially acknowledges
a growth of popular support for socialism,
particularly among the nation’s youth,
testifies to vast changes taking place in the political
consciousness of the working class and the
terror this is striking within the ruling
elite. America is, after all, a
country where
anti-communism was for the greater part of a
century a state-sponsored secular religion. No
ruling class has so ruthlessly sought to
exclude socialist politics from political
discourse as the American ruling class.
The 70-page document is
itself an inane right-wing screed. It seeks to discredit socialism by
identifying it with capitalist countries such as Venezuela that have expanded
state ownership of parts of the economy while protecting private ownership of
the banks, and, with the post-2008 collapse of oil and other commodity prices,
increasingly attacked the living standards of the working class.
It identifies socialism
with proposals for mild
social reform such as “Medicare for all,”
raised and
increasingly abandoned by a section
of the Democratic Party. It cites Milton
Friedman and Margaret Thatcher to promote
the virtues of “economic freedom,”
i.e., the
unrestrained operation of the capitalist
market, and to denounce all
social reforms,
business regulations, tax increases or anything
else that
impinges on the oligarchy’s self-
enrichment.
The report’s arguments
and themes find expression in the fascistic campaign speeches of Donald Trump,
who routinely and absurdly attacks the Democrats as socialists and accuses them
of seeking to turn America into another “socialist” Venezuela.
What has prompted this
effort to blackguard socialism?
A series of recent
polls in the US and Europe have shown a sharp growth of popular disgust with
capitalism and support for socialism. In May of 2017, in a survey conducted by
the Union of European Broadcasters of people aged 18 to 35, more than half said
they would participate in a “large-scale uprising.” Nine out of 10 agreed with
the statement, “Banks and money rule the world.”
Last November, a poll
conducted by YouGov showed that 51 percent of Americans between the ages of 21
and 29 would prefer to live in a socialist or communist country than in a
capitalist country.
In August of this year,
a Gallup poll found that for the first time since the organization
began tracking the figure, fewer than half of Americans aged 18–29
had a positive view of capitalism, while more than half had a
positive view of socialism. The percentage of young
people viewing capitalism positively
fell from 68 percent in 2010 to 45 percent
this year, a 23-percentage point drop
in just eight years.
This surge in interest
in socialism is bound up with a resurgence of class struggle in the US and
internationally. In the United States, the number of major strikes so far this
year, 21, is triple the number in 2017. The ruling class was particularly
terrified by the teachers’ walkouts earlier this year because the biggest
strikes were organized by rank-and-file educators in a rebellion against the
unions, reflecting the weakening grip of the pro-corporate organizations that
have suppressed the class struggle for decades.
The growth of the class
struggle is an objective process that is driven by the global crisis of
capitalism, which finds its most acute social and political expression in the
center of world capitalism—the United States. It is the class struggle that
provides the key to the fight for genuine socialism.
Masses of workers and
youth are being driven into struggle and politically radicalized by decades of
uninterrupted war and the staggering growth of social inequality. This process
has accelerated during the 10 years since the Wall Street crash of 2008. The
Obama years saw the greatest transfer of wealth from the bottom to the top in
history, the escalation of the wars begun under Bush and their spread to Libya,
Syria and Yemen, and the intensification of mass surveillance, attacks on
immigrants and other police state measures.
This paved the way for
the elevation of Trump, the personification of the criminality and backwardness
of the ruling oligarchy.
Under conditions where
the typical CEO in the US now makes in a single day almost as much as the
average worker makes in an entire year, and the net worth of the 400 wealthiest
Americans has doubled over the past decade, the working class is looking for a
radical alternative to the status quo. As the Socialist Equality Party wrote in
its program eight years ago, “The Breakdown of Capitalism and the Fight for Socialism
in the United States”:
The change in objective
conditions, however, will lead American workers to change their minds. The
reality of capitalism will provide workers with many reasons to fight for a fundamental
and revolutionary change in the economic organization of society.
The response of the
ruling class is two-fold. First, the abandonment of bourgeois democratic forms
of rule and the turn toward dictatorship. The run-up to the midterm elections has
revealed the advanced stage of these preparations, with Trump’s fascistic
attacks on immigrants, deployment of troops to the border, threats to gun down
unarmed men, women and children seeking asylum, and his pledge to overturn the
14th Amendment establishing birthright citizenship.
That this has evoked no
serious opposition from the Democrats and the media makes clear that the entire
ruling class is united around a turn to authoritarianism. Indeed, the Democrats
are spearheading the drive to censor the internet in order to silence left-wing
and socialist opposition.
The second response is
to promote phony socialists such as Bernie Sanders, the Democratic Socialists
of America (DSA) and other pseudo-left organizations in order to confuse the
working class and channel its opposition back behind the Democratic Party.
In 2018, with Sanders
totally integrated into the Democratic Party leadership, this role has been
largely delegated to the DSA, which functions as an arm of the Democrats. Two
DSA members, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York and Rashida Tlaib in Detroit,
are likely to win seats in the House of Representatives as candidates of the
Democratic Party.
The closer they come to
taking office, the more they seek to distance themselves from their supposed
socialist affiliation. Ocasio-Cortez, for example, joined Sanders in eulogizing
the recently deceased war-monger John McCain, refused to answer when asked if
she opposed the US wars in the Middle East, and dropped her campaign call for
the abolition of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
OBAMA:
SERVANT OF THE 1%
Richest
one percent controls nearly half of global wealth
The richest one
percent of the world’s population now controls 48.2 percent of global wealth,
up from 46 percent last year.
Record high income in 2017 for top
one percent of wage earners in US
In 2017, the top one
percent of US wage earners received their highest paychecks ever, according to
a report by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).
Based on newly released
data from the Social Security Administration, the EPI shows that the top one
percent of the population saw their paychecks increase by 3.7 percent in 2017—a
rate nearly quadruple the bottom 90 percent of the population. The growth was
driven by the top 0.1 percent, which includes many CEOs and corporate
executives, whose pay increased eight percent and averaged $2,757,000 last
year.
The EPI report is only
the latest exposure of the gaping inequality between the vast majority of the
population and the modern-day aristocracy that rules over them.
The EPI shows that the
bottom 90 percent of wage earners have increased their pay by 22.2 percent
between 1979 and 2017. Today, this bottom 90 percent makes an average of just
$36,182 a year, which is eaten up by the cost of housing and the growing burden
of education, health care, and retirement.
Meanwhile, the top one
percent has increased its wages by 157 percent during this same period, a rate
seven times faster than the other group. This top segment makes an average of
$718,766 a year. Those in-between, the 90th to 99th percentile, have increased
their wages by 57.4 percent. They now make an average of $152,476 a year—more
than four times the bottom 90 percent.
Decades of decaying
capitalism have led to this accelerating divide. While the rich accumulate
wealth with no restriction, workers’ wages and benefits have been under
increasing attack. In 1979, 90 percent of the population took in 70 percent of
the nation’s income. But, by 2017, that fell to only 61 percent.
Even more, while the
bottom 90 percent of the population may take in 61 percent of the wages, large
sections of the workforce today barely pull in any income at all. For
example, Social Security Administration data found that the bottom 54
percent of wage earners in the United States, 89.5 million people, make an
average of just $15,100 a year. This 54 percent of the population earns only 17
percent of all wages paid in America.
However unequal, these
wage inequalities still do not fully present the divide between rich and poor.
The ultra-wealthy derive their wealth not primarily from wages, but from assets
and equities—principally from the stock market. While the bottom 90 percent of
the population made 61 percent of the wages in 2017, they owned even less, just
27 percent of the wealth (according to the World Inequality Report
2018 by Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez, and Gabriel Zucman).
The massive increase in
the value of the stock market, which only a small segment of the population
participates in, means that the top 10 percent of the population controls 73
percent of all wealth in the United States. Just three men—Jeff Bezos, Warren
Buffet and Bill Gates—had more wealth than the bottom half of America combined
last year.
Wages are so low in the
United States that roughly half of the population falls deeper into debt every
year. A Reuters report from July found that the pretax net income (that is,
income minus expense) of the bottom 40 percent of the population was an average
of negative $11,660. Even the middle quintile of the population,
the 40th to 60th percentile, breaks even with an average of only $2,836 a year.
As the Social Security
Administration numbers show, 67.4 percent of the population made less than the
average wage, $48,250 a year in 2017, a sum that is inadequate to support a
family in many cities—especially, with high housing costs, health care,
education, and retirement factored in.
For the ruling class,
though, workers’ wages are already too much. The volatility of the stock market
and the deep fear that the current bull market will collapse has made
politicians and businessmen anxious of any sign of wage increases.
In August, wages in the
US rose just 0.2 percent above the inflation rate, the highest in nine years.
Though the increase was tiny, it was enough to encourage the Federal Reserve to
increase the interest rate past two percent for the first time since 2008.
Raising interest rates helps to depress workers’ wages by lowering borrowing
and spending. As the Financial Times noted, stopping wage
growth was “central” to the Federal Reserve’s move.
Further analysis of the
Social Security Administration data shows that in 2017, 147,754 people reported
wages of 1 million dollars or more—roughly, the top 0.05 percent. Their
combined total income of $372 billion could pay for the US federal education
budget five times over.
These wages, however
large, still pale in comparison to the money the ultra-rich acquire from the
stock market. For example, share buybacks and dividend payments, a way of
funneling money to shareholders, will eclipse $1 trillion this year.
Whatever the immediate
source, the wealth of the rich derives from the great mass of people who do the
actual work. Across the United States and around the world, workers, young
people, and students have entered into struggle this year over pay, education,
health care, immigration, war and democratic rights. This growing movement of
the working class must set as its aim confiscating the wealth and power of this
tiny parasitic oligarchy. Society’s wealth must be democratically controlled by
those who produce it.
THE STAGGERING ECONOMIC INEQUALITY UNDER
OBAMA'S ADMINISTRATION SERVING THE BILLIONAIRE CLASS.
THE
ENTIRE REASON BEHIND AMNESTY IS TO KEEP WAGES DEPRESSED AND PASS ALONG THE REAL
COST OF "CHEAP" MEXICAN LABOR TO THE AMERICAN MIDDLE CLASS.
AND IT'S WORKING!
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS
“Calling income and wealth inequality the "great
moral issue of our time," Sanders laid out a sweeping, almost unimaginably
expensive program to transfer wealth from the richest Americans to the poor and
middle class. A $1 trillion public works program to create "13 million
good-paying jobs." A $15-an-hour federal minimum wage. "Pay
equity" for women. Paid sick leave and vacation for everyone. Higher taxes
on the wealthy. Free tuition at all public colleges and universities. A
Medicare-for-all single-payer health care system. Expanded Social Security
benefits. Universal pre-K.” WASHINGTON EXAMINER
YOU THOUGHT OBAMA INVITED
OBAMANOMICS and started the assault on the American middle-class?
NOPE!
“By the time of Bill Clinton’s election in 1992, the Democratic
Party had completely repudiated its association with the reforms of the New
Deal and Great Society periods. Clinton gutted welfare programs to provide an
ample supply of cheap labor for the rich (WHICH NOW MEANS OPEN BORDERS AND NO
E-VERIFY!), including a growing layer of black capitalists, and passed the 1994
Federal Crime Bill, with its notorious “three strikes” provision that has
helped create the largest prison population in the world.”
Clinton
Foundation Put On Watch List Of
Suspicious ‘Charities’
OBAMA: SERVANT
OF THE 1%
Richest one
percent controls nearly half of global wealth
The richest one percent of the
world’s population now controls 48.2 percent of global wealth, up from 46
percent last year.
The report found that the growth of global inequality has
accelerated sharply since the 2008 financial crisis, as the values of financial
assets have soared while wages have stagnated and declined.
Millionaires projected to own 46 percent of global private wealth by 2019
By Gabriel Black
18 June 2015
Households with more than a million
(US) dollars in private wealth are projected to own 46 percent of global
private wealth in 2019 according to a new report by the Boston
Consulting Group (BCG).
This large percentage, however,
only includes cash, savings, money market funds and listed securities held
through managed investments—collectively known as “private wealth.” It leaves
out businesses, residences and luxury goods, which comprise a substantial
portion of the rich’s net worth.
At the end of 2014, millionaire households
owned about 41
percent of global private
wealth, according to BCG. This means that
collectively these 17 million households owned
roughly $67.24 trillion in
liquid assets, or
about $4 million per household.
In total, the world added $17.5
trillion of new private wealth between 2013 and 2014. The report notes that
nearly three quarters of all these gains came from previously existing wealth.
In other words, the vast majority of money gained has been due to pre-existing
assets increasing in value—not the creation of new material things.
This trend is the result of the
massive infusions of cheap credit into the financial markets by central banks.
The policy of “quantitative easing” has led to a dramatic expansion of the
stock market even while global economic growth has slumped.
While the wealth of the rich is growing at a
breakneck pace,
there is a stratification of
growth within the super wealthy, skewed
towards
the very top.
In
2014, those with over $100 million in private wealth saw
their wealth increase
11 percent in one year alone. Collectively,
these households owned $10 trillion
in 2014, 6 percent of the
world’s private wealth. According to the report,
“This top
segment is expected to be the fastest growing, in both the
number of
households and total wealth.” They are expected to
see 12 percent compound
growth on their wealth in the next
five years.
Those families with wealth between
$20 and $100 million also rose substantially in 2014—seeing a 34 percent
increase in their wealth in twelve short months. They now own $9 trillion. In
five years they will surpass $14 trillion according to the report.
Coming in last in the “high net
worth” population are those with between $1 million and $20 million in private
wealth. These households are expected to see their wealth grow by 7.2 percent
each year, going from $49 trillion to $70.1 trillion dollars, several
percentage points below the highest bracket’s 12 percent growth rate.
The
gains in private wealth of the ultra-rich
stand in sharp contrast to the
experience of
billions of people around the globe. While
wealth accumulation
has sharply sped up for
the ultra-wealthy, the vast majority of people
have not
even begun to recover from the past
recession.
An Oxfam report from
January, for example, shows that the bottom 99 percent of the world’s
population went from having about 56 percent of the world’s wealth in 2010 to
having 52 percent of it in 2014. Meanwhile the top 1 percent saw its wealth
rise from 44 to 48 percent of the world’s wealth.
In
2014 the Russell Sage Foundation found that
between 2003 and 2013, the median
household
net worth of those in the United States fell from
$87,992 to
$56,335—a drop of 36 percent. While
the rich also saw their wealth drop during
the
recession, they are more than making that money
back. Between 2009 and
2012, 95 percent of all
the income gains in the US went to the top 1
percent.
This is the most distorted post-recession
income gain on record.
As the Organization for Economic
Co-operation and Development (OECD) has noted, in the United States “between
2007 and 2013, net wealth fell on average 2.3 percent, but it fell ten-times
more (26 percent) for those at the bottom 20 percent of the distribution.” The
2015 report concludes that “low-income households have not benefited at all
from income growth.”
Another report by Knight
Frank, looks at those with wealth exceeding $30 million. The report notes
that in 2014 these 172,850 ultra-high-net-worth individuals increased their
collective wealth by $700 billion. Their total wealth now rests at $20.8
trillion.
The report also draws attention to
the disconnection between the rich and the actual economy. It states that the
growth of this ultra-wealthy population “came despite weaker-than-anticipated
global economic growth. During 2014 the IMF was forced to downgrade its
forecast increase for world output from 3.7 percent to 3.3 percent.”
DICK MORRIS:
On America’s First Family of Crime….. NO! Not
the Bushes again!
Clinton global hucksterism – Selling out America
like they sold out the Lincoln Bedroom.
HILLARY CLINTON: CRONY CLASS’ “Hope
and Change” huckster’s successor!
“I serve Obama’s cronies first, illegals second
and together we will loot the American middle-class to double our figures. It’s
called BAILOUTS! Evita Peron Clinton
At this point, Clinton is
the choice of most multimillionaires to be the next occupant of the White
House. A recent CNBC poll of 750 millionaires found 53 percent support for
Clinton in a contest with Republican Jeb Bush, 14 points better than Obama’s
showing in the 2012 election with the same group.
Sen. Bernie Sanders – America’s answer to Wall
Street’s looting, the war on the American middle-class and jobs for legals!
“At this point, Clinton is the choice of
most multimillionaires to be the next occupant of the White House. A recent
CNBC poll of 750 millionaires found 53 percent support for Clinton in a contest
with Republican Jeb Bush, 14 points better than Obama’s showing in the 2012 election
with the same group.”
THE CRONY
CLASS:
OBAMACLINTONOMICS
was created by BILLARY CLINTON!
Income inequality grows
FOUR TIMES FASTER under Obama than Bush.
“By the
time of Bill Clinton’s election in 1992, the Democratic Party had completely
repudiated its association with the reforms of the New Deal and Great Society
periods. Clinton gutted welfare programs to provide an ample supply of cheap
labor for the rich (WHICH NOW MEANS OPEN BORDERS AND NO E-VERIFY!), including a
growing layer of black capitalists, and passed the 1994 Federal Crime Bill,
with its notorious “three strikes” provision that has helped create the largest
prison population in the world.”
*
“Calling
income and wealth inequality the "great moral issue of our time,"
Sanders laid out a sweeping, almost unimaginably expensive program to transfer
wealth from the richest Americans to the poor and middle class. A $1 trillion
public works program to create "13 million good-paying jobs." A $15-an-hour
federal minimum wage. "Pay equity" for women. Paid sick leave and
vacation for everyone. Higher taxes on the wealthy. Free tuition at all public
colleges and universities. A Medicare-for-all single-payer health care system.
Expanded Social Security benefits. Universal pre-K.” WASHINGTON
EXAMINER
OBAMA’S WALL STREET and the
LOOTING of AMERICA – SECOND TERM
The
corporate cash hoard has likewise reached a new record, hitting an estimated
$1.79 trillion in the fourth quarter of last year, up from $1.77 trillion in
the previous quarter. Instead of investing the money, however, companies are
using it to buy back their own stock and pay out record dividends.
Megan McArdle Discusses How
America's Elites Are Rigging the Rules - Newsweek/The Daily Beast special
correspondent Megan McArdle joins Scott Rasmussen for a discussion on America's
new Mandarin class.
PATRICK
BUCHANAN: OBAMA’S ASSAULT ON AMERICA BEGINS AT OUR BORDERS
WHO
REALLY PAYS FOR THE CRIMES OF OBAMA’S CRONY DONORS???
LAST WEEK BARACK OBAMA
CELEBRATED FIVE YEARS OF THE LOOTING BY HIS WALL STREET BANKSTERS… now it’s
back to cutting social programs to pay for all that rape by the 1% he
represents. The following week it will be back to the AMNESTY HOAX to legalize
Mexico’s looting of America and make it legal that Mexicans get our jobs first…
they already do!
As in previous budget
crises under the Obama administration, the events are being stage-managed by
the two corporate-controlled parties to give the illusion of partisan gridlock
and confrontation over principles—in this case, whether to go forward with the
implementation of the Obama health care program—while behind the scenes all
factions within the ruling elite agree that massive cuts must be carried
through in basic federal social programs.
OBAMA’S
CRONY CAPITALISM – A NATION RULED BY CRIMINAL WALL STREET BANKSTERS AND OBAMA
DONORS
GET THIS BOOK
Culture of
Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies
by Michelle Malkin
In her shocking new
book, Malkin digs deep into the records of President Obama's staff,
revealing corrupt dealings, questionable pasts, and abuses of power throughout
his administration.
PATRICK
BUCHANAN
After Obama
has completely destroyed the American economy, handed millions of jobs to
illegals and billions of dollars in welfare to illegals…. BUT WHAT COMES NEXT?
OBAMANOMICS: IS IT WORKING???
Millionaires
projected to own 46 percent of global private wealth by 2019
By
Gabriel Black
18 June 2015
Households with more than a million (US)
dollars in private wealth are projected to own 46 percent of global private
wealth in 2019 according to a new report by the Boston Consulting
Group (BCG).
This large percentage, however, only
includes cash, savings, money market funds and listed securities held through
managed investments—collectively known as “private wealth.” It leaves out
businesses, residences and luxury goods, which comprise a substantial portion
of the rich’s net worth.
At the end of 2014, millionaire households
owned about 41 percent of global private wealth, according to BCG. This means
that collectively these 17 million households owned roughly $67.24 trillion in
liquid assets, or about $4 million per household.
In total, the world added $17.5 trillion
of new private wealth between 2013 and 2014. The report notes that nearly three
quarters of all these gains came from previously existing wealth. In other
words, the vast majority of money gained has been due to pre-existing assets
increasing in value—not the creation of new material things.
This trend is the result of the massive
infusions of cheap credit into the financial markets by central banks. The
policy of “quantitative easing” has led to a dramatic expansion of the stock
market even while global economic growth has slumped.
While the wealth of the rich is growing at
a breakneck pace, there is a stratification of growth within the super wealthy,
skewed towards the very top.
In 2014, those with over $100 million in
private wealth saw their wealth increase 11 percent in one year alone.
Collectively, these households owned $10 trillion in 2014, 6 percent of the
world’s private wealth. According to the report, “This top segment is expected
to be the fastest growing, in both the number of households and total wealth.”
They are expected to see 12 percent compound growth on their wealth in the next
five years.
Those families with wealth between $20 and
$100 million also rose substantially in 2014—seeing a 34 percent increase in
their wealth in twelve short months. They now own $9 trillion. In five years
they will surpass $14 trillion according to the report.
Coming in last in the “high net worth”
population are those with between $1 million and $20 million in private wealth.
These households are expected to see their wealth grow by 7.2 percent each
year, going from $49 trillion to $70.1 trillion dollars, several percentage
points below the highest bracket’s 12 percent growth rate.
The gains in private wealth of the
ultra-rich stand in sharp contrast to the experience of billions of people
around the globe. While wealth accumulation has sharply sped up for the
ultra-wealthy, the vast majority of people have not even begun to recover from
the past recession.
An Oxfam report from January, for example, shows
that the bottom 99 percent of the world’s population went from having about 56
percent of the world’s wealth in 2010 to having 52 percent of it in 2014.
Meanwhile the top 1 percent saw its wealth rise from 44 to 48 percent of the
world’s wealth.
In 2014 the Russell Sage Foundation found
that between 2003 and 2013, the median household net worth of those in the
United States fell from $87,992 to $56,335—a drop of 36 percent. While the rich
also saw their wealth drop during the recession, they are more than making that
money back. Between 2009 and 2012, 95 percent of all the income gains in the US
went to the top 1 percent. This is the most distorted post-recession income
gain on record.
As the Organization for Economic
Co-operation and Development (OECD) has noted, in the United States “between
2007 and 2013, net wealth fell on average 2.3 percent, but it fell ten-times
more (26 percent) for those at the bottom 20 percent of the distribution.” The
2015 report concludes that “low-income households have not benefited at all
from income growth.”
Another report by Knight Frank,
looks at those with wealth exceeding $30 million. The report notes that in 2014
these 172,850 ultra-high-net-worth individuals increased their collective
wealth by $700 billion. Their total wealth now rests at $20.8 trillion.
The report also draws attention to the
disconnection between the rich and the actual economy. It states that the
growth of this ultra-wealthy population “came despite weaker-than-anticipated
global economic growth. During 2014 the IMF was forced to downgrade its
forecast increase for world output from 3.7 percent to 3.3 percent.”
THE CRONY CLASS:
OBAMACLINTONOMICS
was created by BILLARY CLINTON!
Income inequality grows
FOUR TIMES FASTER under Obama than Bush.
“By the
time of Bill Clinton’s election in 1992, the Democratic Party had completely
repudiated its association with the reforms of the New Deal and Great Society
periods. Clinton gutted welfare programs to provide an ample supply of cheap
labor for the rich (WHICH NOW MEANS OPEN BORDERS AND NO E-VERIFY!), including a
growing layer of black capitalists, and passed the 1994 Federal Crime Bill,
with its notorious “three strikes” provision that has helped create the largest
prison population in the world.”
*
“Calling income and wealth inequality the "great
moral issue of our time," Sanders laid out a sweeping, almost unimaginably
expensive program to transfer wealth from the richest Americans to the poor and
middle class. A $1 trillion public works program to create "13 million
good-paying jobs." A $15-an-hour federal minimum wage. "Pay
equity" for women. Paid sick leave and vacation for everyone. Higher taxes
on the wealthy. Free tuition at all public colleges and universities. A Medicare-for-all
single-payer health care system. Expanded Social Security benefits. Universal
pre-K.” WASHINGTON EXAMINER
OBAMA’S WALL STREET and the
LOOTING of AMERICA – SECOND TERM
The
corporate cash hoard has likewise reached a new record, hitting an estimated
$1.79 trillion in the fourth quarter of last year, up from $1.77 trillion in
the previous quarter. Instead of investing the money, however, companies are
using it to buy back their own stock and pay out record dividends.
Megan McArdle Discusses How
America's Elites Are Rigging the Rules - Newsweek/The Daily Beast special
correspondent Megan McArdle joins Scott Rasmussen for a discussion on America's
new Mandarin class.
POLL: MOST INCOMPETENT AND
DISHONEST PRESIDENT SINCE…. Well, isn’t Obama merely Bush’s THIRD and FOURTH
TERMS??
OBAMA’S CRONY CAPITALISM
A NATION RULED BY CRIMINAL WALL
STREET BANKSTERS AND OBAMA DONORS
PATRICK BUCHANAN
After Obama has completely destroyed
the American economy, handed millions of jobs to illegals and billions of
dollars in welfare to illegals…. BUT WHAT COMES NEXT?
OBAMANOMICS: IS IT WORKING???
Millionaires projected to own 46 percent of
global private wealth by 2019
By Gabriel Black
18 June 2015
Households with more than a million (US) dollars in private wealth
are projected to own 46 percent of global private wealth in 2019 according to a
new report by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG).
This large percentage, however, only includes cash, savings, money
market funds and listed securities held through managed
investments—collectively known as “private wealth.” It leaves out businesses,
residences and luxury goods, which comprise a substantial portion of the rich’s
net worth.
At the end of 2014, millionaire households owned about 41 percent
of global private wealth, according to BCG. This means that collectively these
17 million households owned roughly $67.24 trillion in liquid assets, or about
$4 million per household.
In total, the world added $17.5 trillion of new private wealth
between 2013 and 2014. The report notes that nearly three quarters of all these
gains came from previously existing wealth. In other words, the vast majority
of money gained has been due to pre-existing assets increasing in value—not the
creation of new material things.
This trend is the result of the massive infusions of cheap credit
into the financial markets by central banks. The policy of “quantitative
easing” has led to a dramatic expansion of the stock market even while global
economic growth has slumped.
While the wealth of the rich is growing at a breakneck pace, there
is a stratification of growth within the super wealthy, skewed towards the very
top.
In 2014, those with over $100 million in private wealth saw their
wealth increase 11 percent in one year alone. Collectively, these households
owned $10 trillion in 2014, 6 percent of the world’s private wealth. According
to the report, “This top segment is expected to be the fastest growing, in both
the number of households and total wealth.” They are expected to see 12 percent
compound growth on their wealth in the next five years.
Those families with wealth between $20 and $100 million also rose
substantially in 2014—seeing a 34 percent increase in their wealth in twelve
short months. They now own $9 trillion. In five years they will surpass $14
trillion according to the report.
Coming in last in the “high net worth” population are those with
between $1 million and $20 million in private wealth. These households are
expected to see their wealth grow by 7.2 percent each year, going from $49
trillion to $70.1 trillion dollars, several percentage points below the highest
bracket’s 12 percent growth rate.
The gains in private wealth of the ultra-rich stand in sharp
contrast to the experience of billions of people around the globe. While wealth
accumulation has sharply sped up for the ultra-wealthy, the vast majority of
people have not even begun to recover from the past recession.
An Oxfam report from January, for example, shows
that the bottom 99 percent of the world’s population went from having about 56
percent of the world’s wealth in 2010 to having 52 percent of it in 2014.
Meanwhile the top 1 percent saw its wealth rise from 44 to 48 percent of the
world’s wealth.
In 2014 the Russell Sage Foundation found that between 2003 and
2013, the median household net worth of those in the United States fell from
$87,992 to $56,335—a drop of 36 percent. While the rich also saw their wealth
drop during the recession, they are more than making that money back. Between
2009 and 2012, 95 percent of all the income gains in the US went to the top 1
percent. This is the most distorted post-recession income gain on record.
As the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development
(OECD) has noted, in the United States “between 2007 and 2013, net wealth fell
on average 2.3 percent, but it fell ten-times more (26 percent) for those at
the bottom 20 percent of the distribution.” The 2015 report concludes that
“low-income households have not benefited at all from income growth.”
Another report by Knight Frank, looks at those with
wealth exceeding $30 million. The report notes that in 2014 these 172,850
ultra-high-net-worth individuals increased their collective wealth by $700
billion. Their total wealth now rests at $20.8 trillion.
The report also draws attention to the disconnection between the
rich and the actual economy. It states that the growth of this ultra-wealthy
population “came despite weaker-than-anticipated global economic growth. During
2014 the IMF was forced to downgrade its forecast increase for world output
from 3.7 percent to 3.3 percent.”
OBAMA-CLINTONomics: the
never end war on the American middle-class. But we still get the tax bills for
the looting of their Wall Street cronies and their bailouts and billions for
Mexico’s welfare state in our borders.
While the wealth of the rich
is growing at a breakneck pace, there is a stratification of growth within the
super wealthy, skewed towards the very top.
In
2014, those with over $100 million in private wealth saw their wealth increase
11 percent in one year alone. Collectively, these households owned $10 trillion
in 2014, 6 percent of the world’s private wealth. According to the report,
“This top segment is expected to be the fastest growing, in both the number of
households and total wealth.” They are expected to see 12 percent compound
growth on their wealth in the next five years.
In 2014 the Russell Sage
Foundation found that between
2003 and 2013, the median
household net worth of those in
the United States fell from
$87,992 to $56,335—a drop of 36
percent. While the rich also saw
their wealth drop during the
recession, they are more than
making that money back.
Between 2009 and 2012, 95 percent
of all the income gains in
the US went to the top 1 percent.
This is the most distorted
post-recession income gain on
record.
INCOME PLUMMETS UNDER OBAMA AND
HIS WALL STREET CRONIES
collapse
of household income in the US… STILL BILLIONS IN WELFARE HANDED TO ILLEGALS…
they already get our jobs and are voting for more!
INCOME PLUMMETS
UNDER OBAMA… most jobs go to illegals.
AS HIS CRONY BANKSTERS
CONTINUE TO LOOT, INCOMES PLUMMET FOR AMERICANS (LEGALS).
GOOD TIME FOR AMNESTY FOR
MILLIONS OF LOOTING MEXICANS?
MORE HERE:
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2014/09/and-still-democrat-party-wants-millions.html
“The yearly income of a
typical US household dropped by a massive 12 percent, or $6,400, in the six
years between 2007 and 2013. This is just one of the findings of the 2013
Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances released Thursday, which documents
a sharp decline in working class living standards and a further concentration
of wealth in the hands of the rich and the super-rich.”
"During the month, some 432,000 people in the US gave up looking for a job."
"The American phenomenon of record stock values fueling an ever greater concentration of wealth at the very top of society, while the economy is starved of productive investment, the social infrastructure crumbles, and working class living standards are driven down by entrenched unemployment, wage-cutting and government austerity policies, is part of a broader global process."
HILLARY CLINTON'S BIGGEST DONORS ARE OBAMA'S CRIMINAL CRONY
BANKSTERS!
"A defining expression of this crisis is the dominance of financial speculation and parasitism, to the point where a narrow international financial aristocracy plunders society’s resources in order to further enrich itself."
Federal Reserve documents stagnant state of US economy
Federal
Reserve documents stagnant state of US economy
By Barry Grey
21 July 2015
The
US Federal Reserve Board last week released its semiannual Monetary Policy
Report to Congress, providing an assessment of the state of the American
economy and outlining the central bank’s monetary policy going forward. The
report, along with Fed Chair Janet Yellen’s testimony before both the House of
Representatives and the Senate, as well as a speech by Yellen the previous week
in Cleveland, present a grim picture of the reality behind the official talk of
economic “recovery.”
In her prepared remarks to Congress last Wednesday and Thursday, Yellen said, “Looking forward, prospects are favorable for further improvement in the US labor market and the economy more broadly.”
She reiterated her assurances that while the Fed would likely begin to raise its benchmark federal funds interest rate later this year from the 0.0 to 0.25 percent level it has maintained since shortly after the 2008 financial crash, it would do so only slowly and gradually, keeping short-term rates well below historically normal levels for an indefinite period.
This was an expected, but nevertheless welcome, signal to the American financial elite, which has enjoyed a spectacular rise in corporate profits, stock values and personal wealth since 2009 thanks to the flood of virtually free money provided by the Fed.
"But as Yellen’s remarks and the Fed report indicate, the explosion of asset values and wealth accumulation at the very top of the economic ladder has occurred alongside an intractable and continuing slump in the real economy."
In her prepared testimony to the House Financial Services Committee and the Senate Banking Committee, Yellen noted the following features of the performance of the US economy over the first six months of 2015:
* A sharp decline in the rate of economic growth as compared to 2014, including an actual contraction in the first quarter of the year.
* A substantial slackening (19 percent) in average monthly job-creation, from 260,000 last year to 210,000 thus far in 2015.
* Declines in domestic spending and industrial production.
In her July 10 speech to the City Club of Cleveland, Yellen cited an even longer list of negative indices, including:
* Growth in real gross domestic product (GDP) since the official beginning of the recovery in June, 2009 has averaged a mere 2.25 percent per year, a full one percentage point less than the average rate over the 25 years preceding what Yellen called the “Great Recession.”
* While manufacturing employment nationwide has increased by about 850,000 since the end of 2009, there are still almost 1.5 million fewer manufacturing jobs than just before the recession.
* Real GDP and industrial production both declined in the first quarter of this year. Industrial production continued to fall in April and May.
* Residential construction (despite extremely low mortgage rates by historical standards) has remained “quote soft.”
* Productivity growth has been “weak,” largely because “Business owners and managers… have not substantially increased their capital expenditures,” and “Businesses are holding large amounts of cash on their balance sheets.”
* Reflecting the general stagnation and even slump in the real economy, core inflation rose by only 1.2 percent over the past 12 months.
The Monetary Policy Report issued by the Fed includes facts that are, if anything, even more alarming, including:
* “Labor productivity in the business sector is reported to have declined in both the fourth quarter of 2014 and the first quarter of 2015.”
* “Exports fell markedly in the first quarter, held back by lackluster growth abroad.”
* “Overall construction activity remains well below its pre-recession levels.”
* “Since the recession began, the gains in… nominal compensation [workers’ wages and benefits] have fallen well short of their pre-recession averages, and growth of real compensation has fallen short of productivity growth over much of this period.”
* “Overall business investment has turned down as investment in the energy sector has plunged. Business investment fell at an annual rate of 2 percent in first quarter… Business outlays for structures outside of the energy sector also declined in the first quarter…”
The report incorporates the Fed’s projections for US economic growth, published following the June meeting of the central bank’s policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee. They include a downward revision of the projection for 2015 to 1.8 percent-2.0 percent from the March projection of 2.3 percent to 2.7 percent.
That the US economy continues to stagnate and even contract is indicated by two surveys released last week while Yellen was testifying before Congress. The Fed reported that factory production failed to increase in June for the second straight month and output in the auto sector fell 3.7 percent. The Commerce Department reported that retail sales unexpectedly fell in June, declining by 0.3 percent.
These statistics follow the employment report for June, which showed that the share of the US working-age population either employed or actively looking for work, known as the labor force participation rate, fell to 62.6 percent, its lowest level in 38 years. During the month, some 432,000 people in the US gave up looking for a job.
The disastrous figures on business investment are perhaps the most telling indicators of the underlying crisis of the capitalist system. The Fed report attributes the sharp decline so far this year primarily to the dramatic fall in oil prices and resulting contraction in investment and construction in the energy sector. But the plunge in oil prices is itself a symptom of a general slowdown in the world economy.
Moreover, a dramatic decline in productive investment is common to all of the major industrialized economies of Europe and North America. In its World Economic Outlook of last April, the International Monetary Fund for the first time since the 2008 financial crisis acknowledged that there was no prospect for an early return to pre-recession levels of economic growth, linking this bleak prognosis to a general and pronounced decline in productive investment.
The American phenomenon of record stock values fueling an ever greater concentration of wealth at the very top of society, while the economy is starved of productive investment, the social infrastructure crumbles, and working class living standards are driven down by entrenched unemployment, wage-cutting and government austerity policies, is part of a broader global process.
The economic crisis in the US and internationally is not simply a conjunctural downturn. It is a systemic crisis of global capitalism, centered in the US. A defining expression of this crisis is the dominance of financial speculation and parasitism, to the point where a narrow international financial aristocracy plunders society’s resources in order to further enrich itself.
While the economy is starved of productive investment, entirely parasitic and socially destructive activities such as stock buybacks, dividend hikes and mergers and acquisitions return to pre-crash levels and head for new heights. US corporations have spent more on stock buybacks so far this year than on factories and equipment.
The intractable nature of this crisis, within the framework of capitalism, is underscored by the IMF’s updated World Economic Outlook, released earlier this month, which projects that 2015 will be the worst year for economic growth since the height of the recession in 2009.
In her prepared remarks to Congress last Wednesday and Thursday, Yellen said, “Looking forward, prospects are favorable for further improvement in the US labor market and the economy more broadly.”
She reiterated her assurances that while the Fed would likely begin to raise its benchmark federal funds interest rate later this year from the 0.0 to 0.25 percent level it has maintained since shortly after the 2008 financial crash, it would do so only slowly and gradually, keeping short-term rates well below historically normal levels for an indefinite period.
This was an expected, but nevertheless welcome, signal to the American financial elite, which has enjoyed a spectacular rise in corporate profits, stock values and personal wealth since 2009 thanks to the flood of virtually free money provided by the Fed.
"But as Yellen’s remarks and the Fed report indicate, the explosion of asset values and wealth accumulation at the very top of the economic ladder has occurred alongside an intractable and continuing slump in the real economy."
In her prepared testimony to the House Financial Services Committee and the Senate Banking Committee, Yellen noted the following features of the performance of the US economy over the first six months of 2015:
* A sharp decline in the rate of economic growth as compared to 2014, including an actual contraction in the first quarter of the year.
* A substantial slackening (19 percent) in average monthly job-creation, from 260,000 last year to 210,000 thus far in 2015.
* Declines in domestic spending and industrial production.
In her July 10 speech to the City Club of Cleveland, Yellen cited an even longer list of negative indices, including:
* Growth in real gross domestic product (GDP) since the official beginning of the recovery in June, 2009 has averaged a mere 2.25 percent per year, a full one percentage point less than the average rate over the 25 years preceding what Yellen called the “Great Recession.”
* While manufacturing employment nationwide has increased by about 850,000 since the end of 2009, there are still almost 1.5 million fewer manufacturing jobs than just before the recession.
* Real GDP and industrial production both declined in the first quarter of this year. Industrial production continued to fall in April and May.
* Residential construction (despite extremely low mortgage rates by historical standards) has remained “quote soft.”
* Productivity growth has been “weak,” largely because “Business owners and managers… have not substantially increased their capital expenditures,” and “Businesses are holding large amounts of cash on their balance sheets.”
* Reflecting the general stagnation and even slump in the real economy, core inflation rose by only 1.2 percent over the past 12 months.
The Monetary Policy Report issued by the Fed includes facts that are, if anything, even more alarming, including:
* “Labor productivity in the business sector is reported to have declined in both the fourth quarter of 2014 and the first quarter of 2015.”
* “Exports fell markedly in the first quarter, held back by lackluster growth abroad.”
* “Overall construction activity remains well below its pre-recession levels.”
* “Since the recession began, the gains in… nominal compensation [workers’ wages and benefits] have fallen well short of their pre-recession averages, and growth of real compensation has fallen short of productivity growth over much of this period.”
* “Overall business investment has turned down as investment in the energy sector has plunged. Business investment fell at an annual rate of 2 percent in first quarter… Business outlays for structures outside of the energy sector also declined in the first quarter…”
The report incorporates the Fed’s projections for US economic growth, published following the June meeting of the central bank’s policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee. They include a downward revision of the projection for 2015 to 1.8 percent-2.0 percent from the March projection of 2.3 percent to 2.7 percent.
That the US economy continues to stagnate and even contract is indicated by two surveys released last week while Yellen was testifying before Congress. The Fed reported that factory production failed to increase in June for the second straight month and output in the auto sector fell 3.7 percent. The Commerce Department reported that retail sales unexpectedly fell in June, declining by 0.3 percent.
These statistics follow the employment report for June, which showed that the share of the US working-age population either employed or actively looking for work, known as the labor force participation rate, fell to 62.6 percent, its lowest level in 38 years. During the month, some 432,000 people in the US gave up looking for a job.
The disastrous figures on business investment are perhaps the most telling indicators of the underlying crisis of the capitalist system. The Fed report attributes the sharp decline so far this year primarily to the dramatic fall in oil prices and resulting contraction in investment and construction in the energy sector. But the plunge in oil prices is itself a symptom of a general slowdown in the world economy.
Moreover, a dramatic decline in productive investment is common to all of the major industrialized economies of Europe and North America. In its World Economic Outlook of last April, the International Monetary Fund for the first time since the 2008 financial crisis acknowledged that there was no prospect for an early return to pre-recession levels of economic growth, linking this bleak prognosis to a general and pronounced decline in productive investment.
The American phenomenon of record stock values fueling an ever greater concentration of wealth at the very top of society, while the economy is starved of productive investment, the social infrastructure crumbles, and working class living standards are driven down by entrenched unemployment, wage-cutting and government austerity policies, is part of a broader global process.
The economic crisis in the US and internationally is not simply a conjunctural downturn. It is a systemic crisis of global capitalism, centered in the US. A defining expression of this crisis is the dominance of financial speculation and parasitism, to the point where a narrow international financial aristocracy plunders society’s resources in order to further enrich itself.
While the economy is starved of productive investment, entirely parasitic and socially destructive activities such as stock buybacks, dividend hikes and mergers and acquisitions return to pre-crash levels and head for new heights. US corporations have spent more on stock buybacks so far this year than on factories and equipment.
The intractable nature of this crisis, within the framework of capitalism, is underscored by the IMF’s updated World Economic Outlook, released earlier this month, which projects that 2015 will be the worst year for economic growth since the height of the recession in 2009.
GM Stock Price Shoots Up On Announcement Of Thousands Of Job Cuts
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GM Stock Price Shoots Up On Announcement Of Thousands Of Job Cuts
The news out of Detroit Monday offered a stark reminder that the fortunes of
The news out of Detroit Monday offered a stark reminder that the fortunes of Wall Street and Main Street often move in opposite directions.
General Motors’ announcement that it planned to idle five manufacturing plantsdevastated working-class families in Michigan, Ohio, Maryland and Ontario. The company, calling the move a response to “changing market conditions,” said it would get rid of more than 6,000 production jobs and another 8,000 salaried positions.
But the single largest batch of job cuts by a U.S. automaker in 17 years wasn’t greeted as grim news by shareholders. Rather, it was cause for celebration.
GM’s stock price surged on the heels of the announcement, closing at 37.65, up nearly 5 percent on the day.
Call it a case of workers lose, investors win.
The maneuvers by GM amount to a major restructuring, and it’s still too soon to say what kind of long-term impact it will have on the company’s stock price. But investors obviously like what they see so far: the company moving to cut its labor costs to brace for lower car sales, even if it means putting thousands of workers on the unemployment line.
“The layoffs are the inevitable outcome of an economic model that views workers as disposable and shareholder excitement as indispensable,” said Scott Paul, president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, a nonprofit that advocates for worker protections in the industry.
Plenty of analysts think the cuts should have come sooner.
Car sales have slowed in both China and the United States, two of GM’s most important markets. Meanwhile, the decision to idle the plants is part of a strategic shift away from cars and toward trucks and SUV’s ― Americans continue to buy big as gas prices remain relatively low ― as well as electric and self-driving vehicles. The company plans to kill the Chevy Volt, Cruze and Impala models, as well as the Cadillac CT6 and Buick LaCrosse.
The layoffs and buyouts will cost an estimated $2 billion, with many workers protected by union contracts through the United Auto Workers and the union Unifor in Canada. So far, investors clearly see that as a long-term investment worth making.
The UAW had a different take on the strategy. “We must step away from the anti-worker thinking of seeking simply the lowest labor cost on the planet,” Gary Jones, the union’s president, said Monday.
Jerry Dias, the president of Unifor, had even harsher words for GM. “We’re sick and tired of General Motors shipping all our jobs to Mexico,” he said at a press conference in Oshawa, Ontario. “They are not closing our damn plant without one hell of a fight.”
"A series of recent polls in the US and Europe have shown a sharp growth of popular disgust with capitalism and support for socialism. In May of 2017, in a survey conducted by the Union of European Broadcasters of people aged 18 to 35, more than half said they would participate in a “large-scale uprising.” Nine out of 10 agreed with the statement, “Banks and money rule the world.”
AS AMERICA SPINS INTO THE NEXT DEPRESSION
GM Closing Five Plants in North America as Consumers Turn Against Cars
2:11
The turn of the American consumer away from cars in favor of SUVs and trucks has prompted General Motors to announce that it will shutter plants in Michigan, Ohio, Maryland, and Ontario next year.
The company said Monday that it will stop production at five plants next year. The affected plants are Detroit-Hamtramck and Warren Transmission in Michigan, Lordstown Assembly in Ohio, Oshawa Assembly in Ontario, Canada, and Baltimore Operations in Maryland.
The closures will affect some 3,300 workers in the U.S., and another 3,000 globally.
In corporate-speak, these plants will become “unallocated.” That means they will have no product to produce.
The affected plants and the vehicles they make are:
- Detroit-Hamtramck and Oshawa make the Chevy Impala.
- Detroit-Hamtramck is the sole producer of the Cadillac CT6, Chevy Volt, and Buick LaCrosse.
- Lordstown makes the Chevy Cruze sedan.
- Oshawa is the only plant that builds the Cadillac XTS sedan.
The move by General Motors follows similar shifts by Fiat-Chrylser and Ford. U.S. automakers are shifting production away from sedans and smaller vehicles in favor of cross-over SUVs and trucks, reflecting the preferences of U.S. buyers. In recent years, consumers purchases have increasingly been concentrated in the larger vehicle market.
The reasons for the shift include improved fuel efficiency and cheaper oil, which both make fing the larger vehicles less costly. As well, many consumers perceive the higher carriage of the trucks and cross-overs as preferable and safer.
All five of the plants will cease production by the end of 2019, according to GM executives.
The company said that it is making these changes now, while the economy is strong, to adapt to “fast-changing market conditions.”
Shares of GM were up by more than 2 percent Monday morning before being halted while the company announced the changes.
GM Announces Cuts At Car Assembly Plants In Michigan, Ohio, Canada
Lordstown Assembly in Ohio, shown here in 2008, is one of the plants that General Motors plans to cut production in 2019.
Ron Schwane/AP
General Motors says it is planning to cease production of some models at three vehicle assembly plants in the U.S. and Canada in 2019. It also plans to cut production at two plants in the U.S. that make transmissions. The company said the moves are part of an effort to cut 15 percent of its workforce.
The decision, announced Monday, will impact Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly in Detroit, Lordstown Assembly in Warren, Ohio, and Oshawa Assembly in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada. Two transmission plants — one in White Marsh, Md., and another in Warren, Mich. — are also set to stop production.
The company said it plans to halt production of the Chevrolet Cruze at the Lordstown plant in March. In Detroit, it plans to halt production of the Buick LaCrosse and Chevrolet Volt in March and the Cadillac CT6 and Chevrolet Impala in June. In Ontario, it plans to halt production of the Chevrolet Impala and Cadillac XTS by the final quarter of 2019.
The company says 5,901 hourly employees and 804 salaried employees work at these plants.
"We are announcing the cessation of certain products resulting in a number of plants being without allocated volume to produce," GM spokesperson Julie Huston-Rough told NPR. She added that shutting down or closing a plant is an issue that must be discussed in negotiations with the United Auto Workers.
GM added that it expects to save some $6 billion by the end of 2020.
"With changing customer preferences in the U.S. and in response to market-related volume declines in cars, future products will be allocated to fewer plants next year," the company said.
UAW Vice President Terry Dittes called it a "callous decision" that would be "profoundly damaging to our American workforce."
"The UAW and our members will confront this decision by GM through every legal, contractual and collective bargaining avenue open to our membership," the union said in a statement.
BANKSTERS AND BILLIONAIRES PREPARE FOR THE WORST.
REVOLUTION IS IN LOOMING AND WILL MARCH RIGHT DOWN WALL STREET FIRST.
"A series of recent polls in the US and Europe have shown a sharp growth of popular disgust with capitalism and support for socialism. In May of 2017, in a survey conducted by the Union of European Broadcasters of people aged 18 to 35, more than half said they would participate in a “large-scale uprising.” Nine out of 10 agreed with the statement, “Banks and money rule the world.”
*
"The ruling class was particularly terrified by the teachers’ walkouts earlier this year because the biggest strikes were organized by rank-and-file educators in a rebellion against the unions, reflecting the weakening grip of the pro-corporate organizations that have suppressed the class struggle for decades."
*“The yearly income of a typical US household dropped by a massive 12 percent, or $6,400, in the six years between 2007 and 2013. This is just one of the findings of the 2013 Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances released Thursday, which documents a sharp decline in working class living standards and a further concentration of wealth in the hands of the rich and the super-rich.”
*
"The American phenomenon of record stock values fueling an ever greater concentration of wealth at the very top of society, while the economy is starved of productive investment, the social infrastructure crumbles, and working class living standards are driven down by entrenched unemployment, wage-cutting and government austerity policies, is part of a broader global process."
*"A defining expression of this crisis is the dominance of financial speculation and parasitism, to the point where a narrow international financial aristocracy plunders society’s resources in order to further enrich itself."
General Motors Says Factory Closings and Restructuring Will Cost 14,700 Jobs
2:30
The major restructuring of General Motors, the first since its bailout in 2009, will result in the company cutting up to 14,700 jobs.
The company said Monday that it would cut 15 percent of its salaried workforce in North America. That is likely to be around 8,000 employees.
In addition to the white collar job cuts, the company is shutting down plants that make models it is discontinuing. This will result in around 6,700 job cuts.
The closures and layoffs follow similar moves by other big U.S. automakers as the industry adjusts to lower consumer demand for passenger cars. While sales smaller cars temporarily boomed in the wake of the financial crisis, largely due to Obama administration subsidies and a steep rise in the price of oil, compacts and sedans have fallen out of favor with American consumers. Demand has shifted to trucks, vans, and SUVs.
The layoffs and closures will face protests from autoworker unions. The United Auto Workers union has said the move was callous.
General Motors employed around 180,000 employees worldwide at the end of 2017, with around approximately 103,000 in the U.S. Earlier this year, it offered a buyout package to some employees. It is not clear how many took the company up on the offer.
While the company has said that it believes tariffs on steel and aluminum will add about $1 billion in costs over the next year, there is little sign that the layoffs and closures are related to the tariffs. The company had around $145 billion in sales last year and costs of production of $118.7 billion, down significantly from $130.5 billion four years prior. So the overall additional costs of the tariffs is relatively small for GM.
Many of the cars that General Motors says it will cease producing were hailed as major break-throughs when introduced. The high-priced Chevy Volt, which initially benefited from enormous government subsidies intended to promote electric vehicles, and the more modestly-priced Chevy Cruze, however, both were sales disappointments. Both were derisively called “Obamamobiles” by some critics, based on the support the Obama administration through behind them.
By Jerry White
"A series of recent polls in the US and Europe have shown a sharp growth of popular disgust with capitalism and support for socialism. In May of 2017, in a survey conducted by the Union of European Broadcasters of people aged 18 to 35, more than half said they would participate in a “large-scale uprising.” Nine out of 10 agreed with the statement, “Banks and money rule the world.”
General Motors Says Factory
Closings and Restructuring
Will Cost 14,700 Jobs
ndustry publication boasts: GM plant closures aimed at extorting more concessions from autoworkers
By Jerry White
30 November 2018
In its coverage of the General Motors plant closure announcement, the has stressed that one of the central aims of the job massacre is to intimidate 140,000 GM, Ford and Fiat Chrysler workers whose contracts are expiring next summer and break their determination to win significant improvements in wages and working conditions from the highly profitable automakers.
This has been confirmed by the chief industry publication Automotive News in an article published Thursday, headlined, "GM sends bold message to UAW with potential plant closures." In the article, Automotive News reporter Michael Wayland acknowledges that GM made the announcement, carefully timed to precede the start of negotiations, not only to undermine workers’ aspirations, but to soften them up for the imposition of even deeper concessions in the next labor agreements.
"While the negotiations don't officially kick off until next year, both sides have assembled their bargaining teams, and members are discussing what to focus on during the talks. As always, many UAW members want more: more raises, more profit-sharing, more everything," Wayland complains.
By announcing that no new products would be allocated to the Detroit-Hamtramck, Lordstown, Ohio and Oshawa, Ontario assembly plants, he boasts, "GM is managing UAW members’ expectations" and "changing the narrative from members wanting more to potentially just wanting to save jobs and plants."
He quotes Kristin Dziczek of the corporate think tank Center for Automotive Research, who adds, "These are real stakes in front of the bargaining team next year for the negotiations. It might actually help the membership focus on jobs and survival more than getting more, more and more in terms of raises, benefits and bonuses."
Like the Mafia, the corporate executives are using the threat of plant closings, which would destroy tens of thousands of direct and related jobs and decimate entire communities, as a gun pointed at the heads of workers. Either they accept less pay, fewer benefits and conditions of industrial slavery or the workers and their families will starve.
This "bold message" is directed at rank-and-file workers, not the UAW or the Unifor union in Canada, which are co-conspirators in this extortion racket. Wayland expresses the hope of the auto bosses that the threatened shutdowns might help the UAW reassert its control over rebellious workers who see the union as nothing more than a corrupt tool of management.
GM’s announcement, he says, "could actually be a blessing in disguise for UAW leaders, who are fighting an internal battle with members following a federal corruption scandal. If union leaders can save one, maybe two plants, they could be seen as heroes instead of company pawns, a view of several recent UAW leaders painted by federal prosecutors."
Any deal the UAW signs to keep a factory open, however, will come at a huge cost to workers. Wayland writes. "If any of the plants are saved, union members should read the fine print in the contract. Expect GM to demand untraditional employment practices such as an increase in temporary, subcontracted or outsourced workers."
"The UAW already opened the door for the practice at Orion Assembly in suburban Detroit with an Autonomous Vehicle Memorandum of Understanding that allows the automaker to offer reduced wages and benefits for some jobs," Wayland writes. This is a reference to the secret deal signed by then UAW Vice President for GM Cindy Estrada that allowed GM to contract work out to its wholly owned subsidiary GM Subsystems, which pays vastly lower wages.
Wayland continues: "The reality is GM has too many plants, legacy costs that remain unacceptable, and it doesn't see crunching metal as a long-term opportunity for growth and profits. The company likely wants to close the plants but could be persuaded to change its mind under the right circumstances."
He concludes, "Collective bargaining between the UAW and Detroit automakers is a theatrical chess match. GM just raised the curtain with a bold move that sets the stage for the next year of negotiations."
Indeed, the contract "negotiations" are a well-orchestrated play where the performers pretend to represent antagonistic parties when in fact both the corporations and their bribed union "partners" are on the same side and workers are across the barricades on the other.
For the past 40 years, the UAW and its Canadian counterparts have asserted again and again that concessions were necessary to defend jobs. The companies, for their part, pocketed workers' givebacks and carried out mass layoffs and plant closings regardless.
It should be recalled that in the 2015 contract talks workers were overwhelmingly determined to win substantial wage increases after a seven-year freeze, restore the eight-hour day and abolish the hated two-tier wage and benefit system imposed in 2007 and expanded under Obama’s 2009 restructuring of GM and Chrysler. On the eve of the opening of talks, Ford announced it was shifting production of its Focus compact and C-Max hybrid and plug-in models to Mexico after 2018, threatening the jobs of more than 4,000 workers at its Michigan Assembly Plant in the Detroit suburb of Wayne.
When the UAW came back with a contract that maintained the two-tier system and other concessions, including a proposal to shift current workers onto a union-run health care program, Fiat Chrysler workers rebelled, voting down the contract by a 2-to-1 margin in the first defeat of a UAW-backed national contract in three decades. The UAW was able to ram through a slightly refurbished deal and similar ones at GM and Ford only by resorting to lies and threats of more plant closures and layoffs amid allegations by workers of outright vote-rigging.
After relying on the UAW to do its dirty work, the auto executives boasted to Wall Street that the 2015 contracts kept labor cost increases below the rate of inflation and would facilitate the layoff of workers by vastly increasing the number of temporary part-time workers, who could be fired at will with no cost to the employer. The UAW also signed separate “competitive” agreements that included a third and fourth tier of lower-paid workers, supposedly to keep several GM and Ford facilities open.
The Automotive News article is a statement right out of the horse’s mouth. The auto executives and the Wall Street financiers have no intention of granting the slightest concessions to workers even though the ruling class is choking on billions in profits. On the contrary, the corporate and financial oligarchy is reacting to the growth of strikes and mass protests against social inequality in the US and around the world by doubling down.
The GM plant closings must be fought. This struggle must be guided by the principle that a good-paying and secure job is non-negotiable and must be a social right guaranteed to all.
This fight will not be carried out by the corporate stooges in the UAW. Nor will the struggle be advanced by making fruitless appeals to Trump or the Democrats, who, despite their phony protests, defend the capitalist system and insist that the corporations have the right to throw workers onto the streets to defend their profits. The unions and the big business politicians want American and Canadian workers to blame workers in Mexico and China for this threat, not the capitalist owners.
If there is to be a struggle, and there must be, then it must be carried out by workers themselves. New organizations of struggle, factory and workplace committees, must be built that are independent of the corrupt unions and democratically controlled by rank-and-file workers themselves. These committees should link up workers across the targeted factories and the entire auto and auto parts industry throughout the US, Canada and other countries. They must unite with workers and young people in Detroit, the cities around the Lordstown plant, and in Oshawa, Ontario to fight.
As the brutal actions of GM make clear, this is a class struggle, a war between two irreconcilably opposed classes. The capitalist exploiters have thrown down the gauntlet. Now it is time for the working class to fight.
AS AMERICA SPINS INTO THE NEXT DEPRESSION
GENERAL MOTORS DUMPS THOUSANDS OF WORKERS AND CLOSES PLANTS - Stockholders celebrate!
"It identifies socialism with proposals for mild social reform such as “Medicare for all,” raised and increasingly abandoned by a section of the Democratic Party. It cites Milton Friedman and Margaret Thatcher to promote the virtues of “economic freedom,” i.e., the unrestrained operation of the capitalist market, and to denounce all social reforms, business regulations, tax increases or anything else that impinges on the oligarchy’s self-enrichment."
“The yearly income of a typical US household dropped by a massive 12 percent, or $6,400, in the six years between 2007 and 2013. This is just one of the findings of the 2013 Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances released Thursday, which documentsa sharp decline in working class living standards and a further concentration of wealth in the hands of the rich and the super-rich.”
"The American phenomenon of record stock values fueling an ever greater concentration of wealth at the very top of society, while the economy is starved of productive investment, the social infrastructure crumbles, and working class living standards are driven down by entrenched unemployment, wage-cutting and government austerity policies, is part of a broader global process."
"A defining expression of this crisis is the dominance of financial speculation and parasitism, to the point where a narrow international financial aristocracy plunders society’s resources in order to further enrich itself."
GM Closing Five Plants in North America as Consumers Turn Against Cars
2:11
The turn of the American consumer away from cars in favor of SUVs and trucks has prompted General Motors to announce that it will shutter plants in Michigan, Ohio, Maryland, and Ontario next year.
The company said Monday that it will stop production at five plants next year. The affected plants are Detroit-Hamtramck and Warren Transmission in Michigan, Lordstown Assembly in Ohio, Oshawa Assembly in Ontario, Canada, and Baltimore Operations in Maryland.
The closures will affect some 3,300 workers in the U.S., and another 3,000 globally.
In corporate-speak, these plants will become “unallocated.” That means they will have no product to produce.
The affected plants and the vehicles they make are:
- Detroit-Hamtramck and Oshawa make the Chevy Impala.
- Detroit-Hamtramck is the sole producer of the Cadillac CT6, Chevy Volt, and Buick LaCrosse.
- Lordstown makes the Chevy Cruze sedan.
- Oshawa is the only plant that builds the Cadillac XTS sedan.
The move by General Motors follows similar shifts by Fiat-Chrylser and Ford. U.S. automakers are shifting production away from sedans and smaller vehicles in favor of cross-over SUVs and trucks, reflecting the preferences of U.S. buyers. In recent years, consumers purchases have increasingly been concentrated in the larger vehicle market.
The reasons for the shift include improved fuel efficiency and cheaper oil, which both make fing the larger vehicles less costly. As well, many consumers perceive the higher carriage of the trucks and cross-overs as preferable and safer.
All five of the plants will cease production by the end of 2019, according to GM executives.
The company said that it is making these changes now, while the economy is strong, to adapt to “fast-changing market conditions.”
Shares of GM were up by more than 2 percent Monday morning before being halted while the company announced the changes.
GM Announces Cuts At Car Assembly Plants In Michigan, Ohio, Canada
Lordstown Assembly in Ohio, shown here in 2008, is one of the plants that General Motors plans to cut production in 2019.
Ron Schwane/AP
General Motors says it is planning to cease production of some models at three vehicle assembly plants in the U.S. and Canada in 2019. It also plans to cut production at two plants in the U.S. that make transmissions. The company said the moves are part of an effort to cut 15 percent of its workforce.
The decision, announced Monday, will impact Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly in Detroit, Lordstown Assembly in Warren, Ohio, and Oshawa Assembly in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada. Two transmission plants — one in White Marsh, Md., and another in Warren, Mich. — are also set to stop production.
The company said it plans to halt production of the Chevrolet Cruze at the Lordstown plant in March. In Detroit, it plans to halt production of the Buick LaCrosse and Chevrolet Volt in March and the Cadillac CT6 and Chevrolet Impala in June. In Ontario, it plans to halt production of the Chevrolet Impala and Cadillac XTS by the final quarter of 2019.
The company says 5,901 hourly employees and 804 salaried employees work at these plants.
"We are announcing the cessation of certain products resulting in a number of plants being without allocated volume to produce," GM spokesperson Julie Huston-Rough told NPR. She added that shutting down or closing a plant is an issue that must be discussed in negotiations with the United Auto Workers.
GM added that it expects to save some $6 billion by the end of 2020.
"With changing customer preferences in the U.S. and in response to market-related volume declines in cars, future products will be allocated to fewer plants next year," the company said.
UAW Vice President Terry Dittes called it a "callous decision" that would be "profoundly damaging to our American workforce."
"The UAW and our members will confront this decision by GM through every legal, contractual and collective bargaining avenue open to our membership," the union said in a statement.
BANKSTERS AND BILLIONAIRES PREPARE FOR THE WORST.
REVOLUTION IS IN LOOMING AND WILL MARCH RIGHT DOWN WALL STREET FIRST.
"A series of recent polls in the US and Europe have shown a sharp growth of popular disgust with capitalism and support for socialism. In May of 2017, in a survey conducted by the Union of European Broadcasters of people aged 18 to 35, more than half said they would participate in a “large-scale uprising.” Nine out of 10 agreed with the statement, “Banks and money rule the world.”
*
"The ruling class was particularly terrified by the teachers’ walkouts earlier this year because the biggest strikes were organized by rank-and-file educators in a rebellion against the unions, reflecting the weakening grip of the pro-corporate organizations that have suppressed the class struggle for decades."
*“The yearly income of a typical US household dropped by a massive 12 percent, or $6,400, in the six years between 2007 and 2013. This is just one of the findings of the 2013 Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances released Thursday, which documents a sharp decline in working class living standards and a further concentration of wealth in the hands of the rich and the super-rich.”
*
"The American phenomenon of record stock values fueling an ever greater concentration of wealth at the very top of society, while the economy is starved of productive investment, the social infrastructure crumbles, and working class living standards are driven down by entrenched unemployment, wage-cutting and government austerity policies, is part of a broader global process."
*"A defining expression of this crisis is the dominance of financial speculation and parasitism, to the point where a narrow international financial aristocracy plunders society’s resources in order to further enrich itself."
General Motors Says Factory
Closings and Restructuring
Will Cost 14,700 Jobs
2:30
The major restructuring of General Motors, the first since its bailout in 2009, will result in the company cutting up to 14,700 jobs.
The company said Monday that it would cut 15 percent of its salaried workforce in North America. That is likely to be around 8,000 employees.
In addition to the white collar job cuts, the company is shutting down plants that make models it is discontinuing. This will result in around 6,700 job cuts.
The closures and layoffs follow similar moves by other big U.S. automakers as the industry adjusts to lower consumer demand for passenger cars. While sales smaller cars temporarily boomed in the wake of the financial crisis, largely due to Obama administration subsidies and a steep rise in the price of oil, compacts and sedans have fallen out of favor with American consumers. Demand has shifted to trucks, vans, and SUVs.
The layoffs and closures will face protests from autoworker unions. The United Auto Workers union has said the move was callous.
General Motors employed around 180,000 employees worldwide at the end of 2017, with around approximately 103,000 in the U.S. Earlier this year, it offered a buyout package to some employees. It is not clear how many took the company up on the offer.
While the company has said that it believes tariffs on steel and aluminum will add about $1 billion in costs over the next year, there is little sign that the layoffs and closures are related to the tariffs. The company had around $145 billion in sales last year and costs of production of $118.7 billion, down significantly from $130.5 billion four years prior. So the overall additional costs of the tariffs is relatively small for GM.
Many of the cars that General Motors says it will cease producing were hailed as major break-throughs when introduced. The high-priced Chevy Volt, which initially benefited from enormous government subsidies intended to promote electric vehicles, and the more modestly-priced Chevy Cruze, however, both were sales disappointments. Both were derisively called “Obamamobiles” by some critics, based on the support the Obama administration through behind them.
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