THAN A TRILLION DOLLARS IN AMERICAN
HOME
VALUES AND NOW THEY'RE COMING BACK FOR
MORE WITH THE BANKSTES' RENT BOY BIDEN!
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.
“This was not because of
difficulties in securing indictments or convictions. On the contrary, Attorney
General Eric Holder told a Senate committee in March of 2013 that the Obama
administration chose not to prosecute the big banks or their CEOs because to do
so might “have a negative impact on the national economy.”
Obama paid $600,000 for a single speech
In the two
years since leaving the White House, former President Barack Obama has spent
his time raising and solidifying his position in the uppermost echelons of the
top one percent of Americans. Obama has raked in exorbitant amounts of money
for public speaking events and made deals worth millions with multiple
companies.
Despite
his quip, made during the depths of the Great Recession, that “at a certain
point you’ve made enough money,” there seems to be no such limit for the
Obamas. His family has amassed so much wealth that even Obama himself said he
was surprised in a speech in South Africa last year.
Since he
left office, the former president has given an estimated 50 speeches a year to
corporate audiences for hundreds of thousands of dollars per event. In 2017,
the same year he left office, Obama was officially recognized as one of the top
ten highest paid public speakers in the US.
Just last month, Obama was reported to have
been paid nearly $600,000 to speak at the EXMA conference in Bogotá, Colombia.
According to the Bogotá Post, EXMA is Colombia’s largest
marketing and business event of the year and one of the largest in Latin
America. Simply titled, “A conversation with President Barack Obama,” his talk
purportedly addressed “influential growth strategies” in marketing and other
aspects of the marketing economy.
Colombia is
infamous for the corruption prevalent in its public sector and
military,
which costs
the country $17 billion a year, equivalent to 5.3 percent of its
GDP.
Colombia
exports half of the world’s cocaine and its drug cartels have been known
to have a hand in
the government. Corruption and drug money are so rampant that
Colombia’s Inspector
General likened it to “the new cartel.”
While Obama
warns of the danger of “exploding inequality” in his speeches, the massive sum
granted to him for one night in Bogotá is more than 10 times what the typical
household in the US makes in a year, and 72 times the average worker’s annual
income in Colombia.
Notably,
Obama’s purse was nearly triple the amount Hillary Clinton was paid for her
notorious speeches to Goldman Sachs that revealed her and the Democratic Party
as Wall Street stooges. Former President Bill Clinton was paid just $200,000
per speech when he toured Latin America in 2005.
A key
factor in Obama’s newfound and growing wealth are those who profited from his
presidency. A number of his public speeches have been given to big Wall Street
firms and investors. Obama has given at least nine speeches to Cantor
Fitzgerald, a large investment and commercial real estate firm, and other
high-end corporations. According to records, each speech has been at least
$400,000 a clip.
During his
presidency, Obama bragged that
his
administration was “the only thing
between
[Wall Street] and the pitchforks.”
In fact,
Obama handed the robber barons and outright criminals responsible for the
2008–09 financial crisis a multi-trillion-dollar bailout. His administration
oversaw the largest redistribution of wealth in history from the bottom to the
top one percent, spearheading the attack on the living standards of teachers
and autoworkers.
Under
Obama’s watch the stock markets soared as the Dow Jones Industrial Average
increased by 149 percent. Meanwhile, the “war on terror” in the Middle East was
expanded with Obama becoming the first president to spend every day of his two
terms at war, much to the delight of the military-industrial complex.
As the
wars raged on and the financial oligarchs fattened themselves off the ever-increasing
mountain of wealth being concentrated at the top of society, real wages
stagnated and an unprecedented opioid overdose crisis spun out of control.
Rising numbers of “deaths of despair” during Obama’s tenure, particularly among
the working class, resulted in a decline in life expectancy unprecedented in
the modern era.
In addition
to monetary rewards for his service to the financial elite and
military-intelligence apparatus, Obama has been lavishly feted by socialites
and billionaires such as Richard Branson. Obama was Branson’s special guest in
2017 on a private island where the pair were seen kite surfing and enjoying the
amenities of Branson’s exclusive resort.
Michelle
Obama has also benefited after the family’s departure from the White House. The
couple signed a $65 million book deal with publishing company Penguin Random
House for their political memoirs. Michelle’s memoir “Becoming” was the
best-selling book of 2018 with over 10 million copies sold. The pair also
signed multi-year deals with Netflix and Spotify to produce content aimed at
“fostering dialogue” and promoting diversity in entertainment.
Obama’s
lucrative post-White House career hobnobbing with the corporate, entertainment
and financial elite epitomizes the revolving door relationship between the US
government and the private sector. Obama’s rewards are simply retroactive
bribery for services rendered to the capitalist elite, who have welcomed him
with open arms.
OBAMA AND BIDEN: 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.
Biden defended the wealthy in his speech to the donors but begged them to be aware of wealth inequality.
THE WALL STREET BOUGHT AND OWNED DEMOCRAT PARTY
SERVING BANKSTERS, BILLIONAIRES and INVADING ILLEGALS
“Our entire crony capitalist system, Democrat and Republican alike, has become a kleptocracy approaching par with third-world hell-holes. This is the way a great country is raided by its elite.” ----Karen McQuillan AMERICAN THINKER
Biden defended the wealthy in his speech to the donors but begged them to be aware of wealth inequality.
THE CRONY CLASS:
Income inequality grows FOUR TIMES FASTER under Obama-Biden and their bankster regime 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.”
“Our entire crony capitalist system, Democrat and Republican alike, has become a kleptocracy approaching par with third-world hell-holes. This is the way a great country is raided by its elite.” ----Karen McQuillan AMERICAN THINKER
Biden defended the wealthy in his speech to the donors but begged them to be aware of wealth inequality.
INCOME PLUMMETS UNDER OBAMA AND HIS WALL STREET CRONIES
Biden defended the wealthy in his speech to the donors but begged them to be aware of wealth inequality.
THE REAL ECONOMY:
US “retail apocalypse” expected to exceed annual high with more than 1,100 store closures announced in one day.
The declining living standards of the working class are feeding directly into the retail apocalypse and mass layoffs of retail workers will only exacerbate the issue. Workers’ wages have seen little to no growth in the last four decades, and any economic growth experienced since 2008 has gone to the wealthiest of the wealthy.
Why do all global billionaires want wider open borders, amnesty and no E-VERIFY?
Biden defended the wealthy in his speech to the donors but begged them to be aware of wealth inequality.
AMERICA: THE ECONOMY IS RIGGED BY CONGRESS SO THE RICH BECOME SUPER RICH.
The American middle class gets the tax bills for Wall Street’s crimes and bottomeless bailouts!
The American middle class gets the tax bills for Wall Street’s crimes and bottomeless bailouts!
Wealth concentration increases in US.
The latest research on wealth inequality by University of California economics professor Gabriel Zucman underscores one of the key social and economic trends since the global financial crisis of 2008. Those at the very top of society, who benefited directly from the orgy of speculation that led to the crash, have seen their wealth accumulate at an even faster rate, while the mass of the population has suffered a major decline.
The past 40 years have seen the consolidation of a plutocratic elite, which has subordinated every aspect of American society to a single goal: amassing ever more colossal amounts of personal wealth. The top one percent have captured all of the increase in national income over the past two decades, and all of the increase in national wealth since the 2008 crash.
“Our entire crony capitalist system, Democrat and Republican alike, has become a kleptocracy approaching par with third-world hell-holes. This is the way a great country is raided by its elite.” ---- Karen McQuillan AMERICAN THINKER
Biden defended the wealthy in his speech to the donors but begged them to be aware of wealth inequality.
Biden defended the wealthy in his speech to the donors but begged them to be aware of wealth inequality.
BILLIONAIRE BETO “BETOMATIC” O’ROURKE PROCLAIMS AMNESTY FOR 40 MILLION INVADING “UNREGISTERED” DEMOCRAT VOTING ILLEGALS.
No word on America’s homeless, housing or jobs crisis for Legals!
Joe Biden Fundraises with Wall Street During Donald Trump Rally
1:34
Former Vice President Joe Biden attended a fundraiser with Wall Street donors during President Donald Trump’s campaign kickoff rally in Florida on Tuesday.
It was the fourth New York City fundraiser for Joe Biden in about 24 hours.
The fundraiser was hosted by Eric Mindich, the CEO of Eton Park Capital Management with about 100 donors including Stephen Scherr, the executive vice president and chief financial officer of Goldman Sachs, H. Rodgin Cohen the senior chairman at Sullivan & Cromwell as well as former Clinton and Obama officials
Biden defended the wealthy in his speech to the donors but begged them to be aware of wealth inequality.
“You know what I’ve found is rich people are just as patriotic as poor people,” he said. “Not a joke. I mean, we may not want to demonize anybody who has made money. The truth of the matter is, you all, you all know, you all know in your gut what has to be done.”
Biden warned that if Trump won re-election, he would “literally fundamentally change the nature of who we are and how we function.”
Biden boasted that Obama leaned on him to help bring members of Congress together during their administration.
“Folks, I believe one of the things I’m pretty good at is bringing people together,” he said. “Every time we had trouble in the administration, who got sent to the Hill to settle it? Me. No, not a joke. Because I demonstrate respect for them.”
Biden defended the wealthy in his speech to the donors but begged them to be aware of wealth inequality.
AMERICA: THE RICH GET MUCH RICHER AND THE MIDDLE CLASS GETS BLUDGEONED…. Illegals get the jobs!
*
Why do the billionaire class all want wider open borders and hordes more “cheap” labor illegals? It’s all about keeping wages depressed for greater profits!
*
“Today’s society benefits those who shaped it, and it has been shaped not by working men and women, but by the new aristocratic elite. Big banks, big tech, big multi-national corporations, along with their allies in the academy and the media—these are the aristocrats of our age. They live in the United States, but they consider themselves citizens of the world” Sen. Josh Hawley
*
*
"This is how they will destroy America from within. The leftist billionaires who orchestrate these plans are wealthy. Those tasked with representing us in Congress will never be exposed to the cost of the invasion of millions of migrants. They have nothing but contempt for those of us who must endure the consequences of
our communities being intruded upon by gang members, drug dealers and human
traffickers. These people have no intention of becoming Americans; like the Democrats who welcome them, they have contempt for us." PATRICIA McCARTHY
“Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of today.” THEODORE ROOSEVELT
*
"But what the Clintons do is criminal because they do it wholly at the expense of the American people. And they feel thoroughly entitled to do it: gain power, use it to enrich themselves and their friends. They are amoral, immoral, and venal. Hillary has no core beliefs beyond power and money. That should be clear to every person on the planet by now." ---- Patricia McCarthy - AMERICANTHINKER.com
*
“The couple parlayed lives supposedly spent in “public service”
into admission into the upper stratosphere of American wealth, with incomes in the top 0.1 percent bracket. The source of this vast wealth was a political machine that might well be dubbed “Clinton, Inc.” This consists essentially of a seedy money-laundering operation to ensure big business support for the Clintons’ political ambitions as well as their personal fortunes."
into admission into the upper stratosphere of American wealth, with incomes in the top 0.1 percent bracket. The source of this vast wealth was a political machine that might well be dubbed “Clinton, Inc.” This consists essentially of a seedy money-laundering operation to ensure big business support for the Clintons’ political ambitions as well as their personal fortunes."
*
"The tax overhaul would mean an unprecedented windfall for the super-rich, on top of the fact that virtually all income gains during the period of the supposed recovery from the financial crash of 2008 have gone to the top 1 percent income bracket."
*
Graph from the Economic Policy Institute
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.
*
Millionaires projected to own 46 percent of global private wealth by 2019
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.
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.
By Gabriel Black
*
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.
Biden defended the wealthy in his speech to the donors but begged them to be aware of wealth inequality.
Despite a booming economy, many U.S. households are still just holding on
https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2019/05/the-recovery-that-never-happened-except.html
"One of the premier institutions of big business, JP Morgan Chase, issued an internal report on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the 2008 crash, which warned that another “great liquidity crisis” was possible, and that a government bailout on the scale of that effected by Bush and Obama will produce social unrest, “in light of the potential impact of central bank actions in driving inequality between asset owners and labor."
Jim Carrey: America ‘Doomed’ If We Don’t Regulate Capitalism"
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."
Biden defended the wealthy in his speech to the donors but begged them to be aware of wealth inequality.
America Created Just 20,000 Jobs in February...and those all went to foreign born
Exclusive–Mo Brooks: ‘Masters of the Universe’ Want More Immigration to ‘Decrease Incomes of Americans’
Consequently, the pumping of ultra-cheap money into the financial system, fueling speculation and parasitism, together with ever-widening social inequality, is not a temporary measure but must be made permanent.
The declining living standards of the working class are feeding directly into the retail apocalypse and mass layoffs of retail workers will only exacerbate the issue.
Workers’ wages have seen little to no growth in the last four decades, and any economic growth experienced since 2008 has gone to
Biden defended the wealthy in his speech to the donors but begged them to be aware of wealth inequality.
“US household net worth sees biggest fall since crisis”
*
“Trump Touts Legal Immigration System for ‘Our Corporations’ at Expense of
American Workers “– JOHN BINDER
Trump’s shift from a wage-boosting legal immigration system to one that benefits corporations and their shareholders coincides with recent big business lobby influence over his White House, at the behest of advisers Jared Kushner and Brooke Rollins.
*
“Trump Abandons ‘America First’ Reforms: ‘We Need’ More Immigration to Grow Business Profits” JOHN BINDER
Biden defended the wealthy in his speech to the donors but begged them to be aware of wealth inequality.
Despite a booming economy, many U.S. households are still just holding on
https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2019/05/the-recovery-that-never-happened-except.html
"One of the premier institutions of big business, JP Morgan Chase, issued an internal report on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the 2008 crash, which warned that another “great liquidity crisis” was possible, and that a government bailout on the scale of that effected by Bush and Obama will produce social unrest, “in light of the potential impact of central bank actions in driving inequality between asset owners and labor."
“Our entire crony capitalist system, Democrat and Republican alike, has become a kleptocracy approaching par with third-world hell-holes. This is the way a great country is raided by its elite.” ---- Karen McQuillan THEAMERICAN THINKER.com
“Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of today.” THEODORE ROOSEVELT
Jim Carrey: America ‘Doomed’ If We Don’t Regulate Capitalism"
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 father of US Treasury Secretary
Steven Mnuchin just completed the most
expensive purchase of a living artist’s work in
US history, spending over $91 million on a
three-foot-tall metallic sculpture. Ken Griffin,
the founder of hedge fund Citadel,
recently dropped $238 million on a
penthouse in New York City, the most
expensive US home ever purchased. And
Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest man,
has invested $42 million in a 10,000-year
clock.
Steven Mnuchin just completed the most
expensive purchase of a living artist’s work in
US history, spending over $91 million on a
three-foot-tall metallic sculpture. Ken Griffin,
the founder of hedge fund Citadel,
recently dropped $238 million on a
penthouse in New York City, the most
expensive US home ever purchased. And
Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest man,
has invested $42 million in a 10,000-year
clock.
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.
"This is how they will destroy America from within. The leftist billionaires who orchestrate these plans are wealthy. Those tasked with representing us in Congress will never be exposed to the cost of the invasion of millions of migrants. They have nothing but contempt for those of us who must endure the consequences of our communities being intruded upon by gang members, drug dealers and human traffickers. These people have no intention of becoming Americans; like the Democrats who welcome them, they have contempt for us." PATRICIA McCARTHY
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.
Additionally, Koch spokespeople at the donors’ conference said the network has its sights set on pushing amnesty for millions of illegal aliens this year.
Biden defended the wealthy in his speech to the donors but begged them to be aware of wealth inequality.
$2,198,468,000,000:
Federal Spending Hit 10-Year High Through March; Taxes Hit 5-Year Low
JPMorgan shares climb after the bank posts
record earnings and revenue
Aaron
P. Bernstein/Reuters
"The
Federal Reserve is a key mechanism for perpetuating this whole filthy system,
in which "Wall Street rules."
Wall
Street rules
the depression is already here for most of us below the
super-rich!
"Overall, the reaction to the decision
points to the underlying fragility of financial markets, which have become
a house of cards as a result of the massive inflows of money from the
Fed and other central banks, and are now extremely susceptible
to even a small tightening in financial conditions."
Socialism
haunts the American ruling class In the two months since Donald Trump
vowed in his State of the Union Address that “America will never be a socialist
country,” the right-wing demagogue president and the Republican Party have
embraced anti-socialism as the defining theme of their campaign in the 2020
elections.
NO PRESIDENT SUCKED IN MORE BRIBES FROM BANKSTERS BEFORE AND
AFTER HIS PRESIDENCY THAT BARACK OBAMA.
Trump criticized
Dimon in 2013 for supposedly contributing to the country’s
economic downturn. “I’m not Jamie Dimon, who pays $13 billion
to settle a case and then pays $11 billion to settle a case and who I
think is the worst banker in the United States,” he told reporters.
“The
response of the administration was to rush to the defense of the banks. Even
before coming to power, Obama expressed his unconditional support for the
bailouts, which he subsequently expanded. He assembled an administration
dominated by the interests of finance capital, symbolized by economic adviser
Lawrence Summers and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.”
Practically every cabinet appointee of Obama’s has close personal
connections to the ruling class, many having come directly from corporate
boardrooms. Under Obama’s watch not a single executive at a major financial
firm has been criminally tried, much less sent to jail, for their role in the
financial crisis.
“Attorney General Eric Holder's tenure
was a low point even within the disgraceful scandal-ridden Obama years.” DANIEL
GREENFIELD / FRONTPAGE MAG
"One of the premier institutions of
big business, JP Morgan Chase, issued an internal report on the
eve of the 10th anniversary of the 2008 crash, which warned that
another “great liquidity crisis” was possible, and that a
government bailout on the scale of that effected by Bush and Obama
will produce social unrest, “in light of the potential impact
of central bank actions in driving inequality between
asset owners and labor."
This manufactured crisis has, in turn, been
exploited by the Obama administration and both big business parties to hand
over trillions in pension funds and other public assets to the financial
kleptocracy that rules America.
“Our
entire crony capitalist system, Democrat and Republican alike, has become
a kleptocracy approaching par with third-world hell-holes. This
is the way a great country is raided by its elite.” ---- Karen
McQuillan THEAMERICAN THINKER.com
“This
was not because of difficulties in securing indictments or convictions. On the
contrary, Attorney General Eric Holder told a Senate committee in March of 2013
that the Obama administration chose not to prosecute the big banks or their
CEOs because to do so might “have a negative impact on the national economy.”
"One of the premier
institutions of big business, JP Morgan Chase, issued
an internal report on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the 2008
crash, which warned that another “great liquidity crisis”
was possible, and that a government bailout on the scale of that
effected by Bush and Obama will produce social unrest, “in light of
the potential impact of central bank actions in driving
inequality between asset owners and labor."
$2,198,468,000,000:
Federal Spending Hit 10-Year High Through March; Taxes Hit 5-Year Low
(Getty Images/Ron Sachs-Pool)
(CNSNews.com) - The federal government spent $2,198,468,000,000
in the first six months of fiscal 2019 (October through March), which is the
most it has spent in the first six months of any fiscal year in the last
decade, according
to the Monthly Treasury Statements.
The last time the government spent more in the
October-through-March period was in fiscal 2009, when it spent
$2,326,360,180,000 in constant March 2019 dollars.
Fiscal 2009 was the fiscal year that began with President George
W. Bush signing a $700-billion law to bailout the banking industry in October
2008 and then saw President Barack Obama sign a $787-billion stimulus law in
February 2009.
JPMorgan shares climb after the bank posts
record earnings and revenue
3h
·
JPMorgan
reported first-quarter earnings results on Friday, kicking off another earnings
season for the largest US banks.
JPMorgan Chase reported record
first-quarter results on both the top and bottom lines Friday morning. Shares
climbed 2.3% in early trading to $108.68.
Here's how the results stacked up with Wall
Street's expectations as compiled by Bloomberg.
·
Adjusted net income: $9.18 billion versus $7.7 billion expected
·
Earnings per share: $2.65 versus $2.34 expected
·
Revenue: $29.85
billion versus $28.4 billion expected
·
Expenses: $16.4
billion versus $16.7 billion expected
"In the first quarter of 2019, we had
record revenue and net income, strong performance across each of our major
businesses, and a more constructive environment," CEO Jamie Dimon said in
the earnings release. "Even amid some global geopolitical
uncertainty, the US economy continues to grow, employment and wages are going
up, inflation is moderate, financial markets are healthy, and consumer and
business confidence remains strong."
A deeper look into the numbers showed the
trading and investment-banking businesses exceeded expectations, though trading
declined 17% from the year earlier:
·
FICC sales & trading revenue: $3.73 billion versus $3.67 billion
expected
·
Equity sales & trading revenue: $1.74 billion versus $1.73 billion
expected
·
Investment-banking revenue: $1.75 billion versus $1.63 billion
expected
"The
Federal Reserve is a key mechanism for perpetuating this whole filthy system,
in which "Wall Street rules."
Wall
Street rules
The Federal Reserve
sent a clear message to Wall Street on Friday: It will not allow the longest
bull market in American history to end. The message was received loud and
clear, and the Dow rose by more than 700 points.
Hundreds of thousands
of federal workers remain furloughed or forced to work without pay as the
partial government shutdown enters its third week, but the US central bank is
making clear that all of the resources of the state are at the disposal of the
financial oligarchy.
Responding to
Thursday’s market selloff following a dismal report from Apple and signs of a
manufacturing slowdown in both China and the US, the Fed declared it was
“listening” to the markets and would scrap its plans to raise interest rates.
Speaking at a
conference in Atlanta, where he was flanked by his predecessors Ben Bernanke
and Janet Yellen, both of whom had worked to reflate the stock market bubble
after the 2008 financial crash, Chairman Jerome Powell signaled that the Fed
would back off from its two projected rate increases for 2019.
“We’re listening
sensitively to the messages markets are sending,” he said, adding that the
central bank would be “patient” in imposing further rate increases. To
underline the point, he declared, “If we ever came to the conclusion that any
aspect of our plans” was causing a problem, “we wouldn’t hesitate to change
it.”
This extraordinary
pledge to Wall Street followed the 660 point plunge in the Dow Jones Industrial
Average on Thursday, capping off the worst two-day start for a new trading year
since the collapse of the dot.com bubble.
William McChesney
Martin, the Fed chairman from 1951 to 1970, famously said that his job was “to
take away the punch bowl just as the party gets going.” Now the task of the Fed
chairman is to ply the wealthy revelers with tequila shots as soon as they
start to sober up.
Powell’s remarks were
particularly striking given that they followed the release Friday of the most
upbeat jobs report in over a year, with figures, including the highest
year-on-year wage growth since the 2008 crisis, universally lauded as
“stellar.”
While US financial
markets have endured the worst December since the Great
Depression, amid mounting fears of a looming recession and a new
financial crisis, analysts have been quick to point out that there are no
“hard” signs of a recession in the United States.
Both the Dow and the
S&P 500 indexes have fallen more than 15 percent from their recent highs,
while the tech-heavy NASDAQ has entered bear market territory, usually defined
as a drop of 20 percent from recent highs.
The markets, Powell
admitted, are “well ahead of the data.” But it is the markets, not the “data,”
that Powell is listening to.
Since World War II,
bear markets have occurred, on average, every five-and-a-half years. But if the
present trend continues, the Dow will reach 10 years without a bear market in
March, despite the recent losses.
Now the Fed has stepped
in effectively to pledge that it will allocate whatever resources are
needed to ensure that no substantial market correction takes place. But
this means only that when the correction does come, as it
inevitably
must, it will be all
the more severe and the Fed will have all the less power to stop it.
From the standpoint of the
history of the institution, the Fed’s current more or less explicit role as
backstop for the stock market is a relatively new development. Founded in 1913,
the Federal Reserve legally has had the “dual mandate” of ensuring both maximum
employment and price stability since the late 1970s. Fed officials have
traditionally denied being influenced in policy decisions by a desire to drive
up the stock market.
Federal Reserve
Chairman Paul Volcker, appointed by Democratic President Jimmy Carter in 1979,
deliberately engineered an economic recession by driving the benchmark federal
funds interest rate above 20 percent. His highly conscious aim, in the name of
combating inflation, was to quash a wages movement of US workers by triggering
plant closures and driving up unemployment.
The actions of the Fed
under Volcker set the stage for a vast upward redistribution of wealth,
facilitated on one hand by the trade unions’ suppression of the class struggle
and on the other by a relentless and dizzying rise on the stock market.
Volcker’s recession,
together with the Reagan administration’s crushing of the 1981 PATCO air
traffic controllers’ strike, ushered in decades of mass layoffs,
deindustrialization and wage and benefit concessions, leading labor’s share of
total national income to fall year after year.
These were also decades
of financial deregulation, leading to the savings and loan crisis of the late
1980s, the dot.com bubble of 1999-2000, and, worst of all, the 2008 financial
crisis.
In each of these
crises, the Federal Reserve carried out what became known as the “Greenspan
put,” (later the “Bernanke put”)—an implicit guarantee to backstop the
financial markets, prompting investors to take ever greater risks.
In 2008, this resulted
in the most sweeping and systemic financial crisis since the Great Depression,
prompting Fed Chairman Bernanke, New York Fed President Tim Geithner and
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson (the former CEO of Goldman Sachs) to
orchestrate the largest bank bailout in human history.
Since that time, the
Federal Reserve has carried out its most accommodative monetary policy ever,
keeping interest rates at or near zero percent for six years. It supplemented
this boondoggle for the financial elite with its multi-trillion-dollar
“quantitative easing” money-printing program.
The
effect can be seen in the ever more staggering wealth of the financial
oligarchy, which has consistently enjoyed investment returns of between 10 and
20 percent every year since the financial crisis, even as the incomes of
workers have stagnated or fallen.
American capitalist
society is hooked on the toxic growth of social inequality created by the stock
market bubble. This, in turn, fosters the political framework not just for the
decadent lifestyles of the financial oligarchs, each of whom owns, on average,
a half-dozen mansions around the world, a private jet and a super-yacht, but
also for the broader periphery of the affluent upper-middle class, which
provides the oligarchs with political legitimacy and support. These elite
social layers determine American political life, from which the broad mass of
working people is effectively excluded.
The Federal Reserve is
a key mechanism for perpetuating this whole filthy system,
in which “Wall Street rules.” But its services in behalf
of the rich and the super-rich only compound the fundamental
and insoluble contradictions of capitalism, plunging the system
into ever deeper debt and ensuring that the next crisis will be
that much more violent and explosive.
In this intensifying
crisis, the working class must assert its independent interests with the same
determination and ruthlessness as evinced by the ruling class. It must answer
the bourgeoisie’s social counterrevolution with the program of socialist
revolution.
the depression is already here for most of us below the
super-rich!
Trump and the GOP created a fake
economic boom on our collective credit card: The equivalent of
maxing out your credit cards and saying look how good I'm doing right
now.
*
Trump criticized
Dimon in 2013 for supposedly contributing to the country’s
economic downturn. “I’m not Jamie Dimon, who pays $13 billion
to settle a case and then pays $11 billion to settle a case and who I
think is the worst banker in the United States,” he told reporters.
*
"One of the premier
institutions of big business, JP Morgan Chase, issued
an internal report on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the 2008
crash, which warned that another “great liquidity crisis”
was possible, and that a government bailout on the scale of that
effected by Bush and Obama will produce social unrest, “in light of
the potential impact of central bank actions in driving
inequality between asset owners and labor."
*
"Overall, the reaction to the decision
points to the underlying fragility of financial markets, which have become
a house of cards as a result of the massive inflows of money from the
Fed and other central banks, and are now extremely susceptible
to even a small tightening in financial conditions."
*
"It
is significant that what the Financial
Times described as a “tsunami of money”—estimated to reach $1
trillion for the year—has failed to prevent what could be the worst year for
stock markets since the global financial crisis."
*
"A decade ago, as the
financial crisis raged, America’s banks were in ruins. Lehman Brothers,
the storied 158-year-old investment house, collapsed into bankruptcy in
mid-September 2008. Six months earlier, Bear Stearns, its competitor, had
required a government-engineered rescue to avert the same outcome. By
October, two of the nation’s largest commercial banks, Citigroup and Bank
of America, needed their own government-tailored bailouts to escape
failure. Smaller but still-sizable banks, such as Washington
Mutual and IndyMac, died."
*
The GOP said the "Tax Cuts and Jobs Act" would reduce
deficits and supercharge the economy (and stocks and wages). The White
House says things are working as planned, but one year
on--the numbers mostly suggest otherwise.
Obama's Wall
Street cabinet
6 April 2009
A series of articles published over
the weekend, based on financial disclosure reports released by the Obama
administration last Friday concerning top White House officials, documents the
extent to which the administration, in both its personnel and policies, is a
political instrument of Wall Street.
Policies that are extraordinarily
favorable to the financial elite that were put in place over the past month by
the Obama administration have fed a surge in share values on Wall Street. These
include the scheme to use hundreds of billions of dollars in public funds to
pay hedge funds to buy up the banks’ toxic assets at inflated prices, the Auto
Task Force’s rejection of the recovery plans of Chrysler and General Motors and
its demand for even more brutal layoffs, wage cuts and attacks on workers’
health benefits and pensions, and the decision by the Financial Accounting
Standards Board (FASB) to weaken “mark-to-market” accounting rules and permit
banks to inflate the value of their toxic assets.
At the same time, Obama has campaigned against restrictions on bonuses
paid to executives at insurance giant American International Group (AIG) and
other bailed-out firms, and repeatedly assured Wall Street that he will slash
social spending, including Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
The new financial disclosures reveal that top Obama advisors
directly involved in setting these policies have received millions from Wall
Street firms, including those that have received huge taxpayer bailouts.
The case of Lawrence Summers,
director of the National Economic Council and Obama’s top economic adviser,
highlights the politically incestuous character of relations between the Obama
administration and the American financial elite.
Last year, Summers pocketed $5
million as a managing director of D.E. Shaw, one of the biggest hedge funds in
the world, and another $2.7 million for speeches delivered to Wall Street firms
that have received government bailout money. This includes $45,000 from
Citigroup and $67,500 each from JPMorgan Chase and the now-liquidated Lehman
Brothers.
For a speech to Goldman Sachs
executives, Summers walked away with $135,000. This is substantially more than
double the earnings for an entire year of high-seniority auto workers, who have
been pilloried by the Obama administration and the media for their supposedly
exorbitant and “unsustainable” wages.
Alluding diplomatically to the
flagrant conflict of interest revealed by these disclosures, the New York Times
noted on Saturday: “Mr. Summers, the director of the National Economic Council,
wields important influence over Mr. Obama’s policy decisions for the troubled
financial industry, including firms from which he recently received payments.”
Summers was a leading advocate of
banking deregulation. As treasury secretary in the second Clinton
administration, he oversaw the lifting of basic financial regulations dating
from the 1930s. The Times article notes that among his current responsibilities
is deciding “whether—and how—to tighten regulation of hedge funds.”
Summers is not an exception. He is rather typical of the Wall Street
insiders who comprise a cabinet and White House team that is filled with
multi-millionaires, presided over by a president who parlayed his own political
career into a multi-million-dollar fortune.
Michael Froman, deputy national
security adviser for international economic affairs, worked for Citigroup and
received more than $7.4 million from the bank from January of 2008 until he
entered the Obama administration this year. This included a $2.25 million
year-end bonus handed him this past January, within weeks of his joining the
Obama administration.
Citigroup has thus far been the
beneficiary of $45 billion in cash and over $300 billion in government
guarantees of its bad debts.
David Axelrod, the Obama campaign’s
top strategist and now senior adviser to the president, was paid $1.55 million
last year from two consulting firms he controls. He has agreed to buyouts that
will garner him another $3 million over the next five years. His disclosure claims
personal assets of between $7 and $10 million.
Obama’s deputy national security
adviser, Thomas E. Donilon, was paid $3.9 million by a Washington law firm
whose major clients include Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and the private equity
firm Apollo Management.
Louis Caldera, director of the
White House Military Office, made $227,155 last year from IndyMac Bancorp, the
California bank that heavily promoted subprime mortgages. It collapsed last
summer and was placed under federal receivership.
The presence of multi-millionaire
Wall Street insiders extends to second- and third-tier positions in the Obama
administration as well. David Stevens, who has been tapped by Obama to head the
Federal Housing Administration, is the president and chief operating officer of
Long and Foster Cos., a real estate brokerage firm. From 1999 to 2005, Stevens
served as a top executive for Freddie Mac, the federally-backed mortgage
lending giant that was bailed out and seized by federal regulators in
September.
Neal Wolin, Obama’s selection for
deputy counsel to the president for economic policy, is a top executive at the
insurance giant Hartford Financial Services, where his salary was $4.5 million.
Obama’s Auto Task Force has as its
top advisers two investment bankers with a long resume in corporate downsizing
and asset-stripping.
It is not new for leading figures
from finance to be named to high posts in a US administration. However, there
has traditionally been an effort to demonstrate a degree of independence from
Wall Street in the selection of cabinet officials and high-ranking presidential
aides, often through the appointment of figures from academia or the public
sector. In previous decades, moreover, representatives of the corporate elite
were more likely to come from industry than from finance.
In the Obama
administration such considerations have largely been abandoned.
This will not come as a surprise to
those who critically followed Obama’s election campaign. While he postured
before the electorate as a critic of the war in Iraq and a quasi-populist force
for “change,” he was from the first heavily dependent on the financial and
political backing of powerful financiers in Chicago. Banks, hedge funds and other financial firms lavishly backed his
presidential bid, giving him considerably more than they gave to his Republican
opponent, Senator John McCain.
Friday’s financial disclosures
further expose the bankruptcy of American democracy. Elections have no real
effect on government policy, which is determined by the interests of the
financial aristocracy that dominates both political parties. The working class
can fight for its own interests—for jobs, decent living standards, health care,
education, housing and an end to war.
///
“Records show that four out of
Obama's top five contributors are employees of financial industry giants -
Goldman Sachs ($571,330), UBS AG ($364,806), JPMorgan Chase ($362,207) and
Citigroup ($358,054).”
OBAMA and HIS BANKS: THEIR PROFITS,
CRIMES and LOOTING SOAR
CRONY KING OBAMA: CURL: The Obamas
live the 1% life
OBAMAnomics:
FROM THE MAN THAT HATED AMERICAN BUT
LOVED AMERICAN BANKSTERS:
OBAMA, THE BANKSTER OWNED LA RAZA DEM
THE GLOBALIST LEGACY OF A SOCIOPATH
Obama warns against “cynicism” at
Ohio State commencement address
7 May 2013
At a commencement address on Sunday
at Ohio State University, President Barack Obama counseled students not to be
“cynical” about government and politics.
There was an almost comically
absurd element to Obama’s remarks, delivered with his characteristic demagogy
and attempted gestures at profundity. In
his first four years in office, along with the first months of his second term,
Obama proceeded to systematically repudiate every campaign pledge and to
deflate every illusion that, with the assistance of a highly coordinated
marketing campaign, led millions of people, including a large number of young
people, to vote for him in 2008.
The Obama administration handed trillions of dollars to the
banks; has overseen a massive attack on public education; is leading the campaign
to slash Social Security and Medicare, the core federal retirement and health
care programs; expanded the war in Afghanistan, led a war against Libya, and is
preparing a new war in Syria; and has asserted the right to kill anyone,
anywhere, including US citizens, without due process.
After this record of service to the
corporate elite, he declares: “When we turn away and get discouraged and
cynical… we grant our silent consent to someone who will gladly claim it.
That’s how we end up with lobbyists who set the agenda; and policies detached
from what middle class families face every day; the well-connected who publicly
demand that Washington stay out of their business—and then whisper in
government’s ear for special treatment that you don’t get.”
The references to the “whispers” of
the wealthy and well-connected is particularly rich, coming only a week after
Obama nominated Penny Pritzker for commerce secretary. The selection of Pritzker—a longtime Obama confidant, billionaire
heiress and owner of a private equity company—only underscores the fact that
the administration is a government of, by and for the financial aristocracy.
She will be the wealthiest person ever to serve in a presidential cabinet.
Previous to his appointment of
Pritzker, Obama appointed Mary Jo White to head the Securities and Exchange
Commission (SEC), one of the main financial regulators. White made millions of
dollars as an attorney for banks responsible for the financial crisis,
including Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase, whose CEO, Jamie Dimon, called
White the “perfect choice” to head the SEC.
Practically every cabinet appointee of Obama’s has close personal
connections to the ruling class, many having come directly from corporate
boardrooms. Under Obama’s watch not a single executive at a major financial
firm has been criminally tried, much less sent to jail, for their role in the
financial crisis.
As a whole, Obama’s speech was
characterized by a complete separation from the actual conditions facing the
graduates he spoke to, who confront joblessness, falling wages, and a lifetime
in debt. “You have every reason to believe that your future is bright,” he told
his audience. “You’re graduating into an economy and a job market that is
steadily healing.”
He added later, “The trajectory of
this great nation should give you hope.” Really? This is under conditions in
which over 11 percent of college graduates are unemployed a year after getting
out of school, and another 16.1 percent simply drop out of the labor force,
according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Most of those who do find a job
are paid barely enough to get by, let alone pay off student loans. Wages for
young adults are falling faster than any other part of the population, and are
down by 6 percent in the past four years.
Most of the students that Obama
addressed Sunday will be so burdened with debt that they will delay or have to
completely put off starting a family or buying a home.
It is not surprising that Obama
should neglect to dwell on this disastrous situation, because his
administration bears responsibility for it. In the government-sponsored
restructuring of the auto industry, the White House insisted that the wages of
new-hires be slashed in half, setting the stage for vast reduction of wages
throughout the economy.
Obama sought to paint opposition to
the government’s violation of democratic rights as right-wing hysterics.
“Unfortunately, you’ve grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of
government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity,” Obama said.
“They’ll warn that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner. You should
reject these voices.”
This comes from a president who has
personally overseen the illegal assassination of thousands of people, including
at least three American citizens, in weekly “Terror Tuesday” meetings. The
assertions of executive power have been systematically expanded, going beyond
those claimed even by the Bush administration. The specter of a police
state—the response of the ruling class to growing social opposition—is in fact
lurking around the corner.
The moribund state of American
politics, of which the Obama administration is a principal expression, is,
according to the president, the fault of the American people. “Democracy
doesn’t function without your active participation,” he admonished. If
politicians “don’t represent you the way you want… you’ve got to let them know
that’s not okay. And if they let you down, there’s a built-in day in November
where you can really let them know that’s not okay.”
Such limp efforts to encourage
illusions in the viability of the “democratic process” in the United States
will not go very far. The experience of the past four years has not passed in
vain. Millions of people, including many of those in the audience at Ohio
State, are drawing the quite justified, if “cynical,” conclusion that the
entire political and economic system is rotten to the core.
Mounting evidence of international collusion in Libor
rigging - THE RAPE OF THE ECONOMY BY THE BANKSTERS
Mounting evidence of international collusion in Libor
rigging
OBAMA'S AND HIS CRIMINAL BANKSTER DONORS AT WORK:
JPMorgan’s
investment arm, which includes its energy group, collects $14 billion annually;
in comparison, six months’ worth of fines would amount to a paltry $180
million.
THERE IS A REASON WHY THE BANKSTERS INVESTED HEAVILY IN
OBAMA’S CORRUPT ADMINISTRATION!
Records show that four out of Obama's top five contributors
are employees of financial industry giants - Goldman Sachs ($571,330), UBS AG
($364,806), JPMorgan Chase ($362,207) and Citigroup ($358,054).
Obama: JPMorgan Is 'One of the Best-Managed Banks'
By Mary Bruce | ABC OTUS News – 2 hrs 31 mins ago
Obama: JPMorgan Is 'One of the …
Lou Rocco / ABC News
Just hours after a
top JPMorgan Chase executive retired in the wake of a stunning $2 billion
trading loss, President Obamatold the hosts of ABC's "The View" that
the bank's risky bets exemplified the need for Wall Street reform.
*
JPMorgan Chase investigated for manipulating California
energy market
By Oliver Richards
23 July 2012
The California Independent Systems Operator (CalISO), the
nonprofit organization that coordinates the state’s electricity market, has
alleged that JPMorgan Chase& Co. manipulated the state’s energy market,
resulting in at least $73 million in improper payments—costs passed along to
the state’s energy consumers.
OBAMA’S CRONY BANKSTERS:
STILL SUCKING THE BLOOD OUT OF AMERICA
This manufactured crisis has, in turn, been
exploited by the Obama administration and both big business parties to hand
over trillions in pension funds and other public assets to the financial
kleptocracy that rules America.
“Our
entire crony capitalist system, Democrat and Republican alike, has become
a kleptocracy approaching par with third-world hell-holes. This
is the way a great country is raided by its elite.” ---- Karen
McQuillan THEAMERICAN THINKER.com
“This
was not because of difficulties in securing indictments or convictions. On the
contrary, Attorney General Eric Holder told a Senate committee in March of 2013
that the Obama administration chose not to prosecute the big banks or their
CEOs because to do so might “have a negative impact on the national economy.”
OBAMANOMICS
TO SERVE BANKSTERS
AND
GLOBAL BILLIONAIRES
"One of the premier institutions of
big business, JP Morgan Chase, issued an internal report on the
eve of the 10th anniversary of the 2008 crash, which warned that
another “great liquidity crisis” was possible, and that a government bailout
on the scale of that effected by Bush and Obama will produce social
unrest, “in light of the potential impact of central bank actions
in driving inequality between asset owners and labor."
BILLIONAIRES, BANKSTERS AND THE RICH PARTNER WITH TRUMP TO FIGHT …
economic equality.
"JPMorgan
Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, who was known as Barack Obama’s
favorite banker and who has been a major donor to
the
Democratic Party, centered his annual letter to shareholders on a
denunciation of socialism."
BANKSTER SOCIALISM
Dimon’s bank received tens of billions
of dollars in government bailouts and many billions more from the
Obama administration’s ultra-low interest rate and “quantitative
easing” money-printing policies. He told his shareholders that
“socialism inevitably produces stagnation, corruption” and “authoritarian
government,” and would be “a disaster for our country.”… UNLESS IT IS
SOCIALISM FOR BANKSTERS AND WALL STREET!
*
"This paved the way for the elevation of
Trump, the personification of the criminality and backwardness of the ruling
oligarchy."
*
"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."
*
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