The Mexican Invasion and Occupation: Mexico & Dems Build the LA RAZA UNIDOus Mex Welfare State

When Biden took office, one of his first acts was the elimination of our border security. Like a power-hungry dictator, Biden simply decided to ignore our immigration laws. His catastrophic border policy resulted in untold millions of unidentified foreign citizens from around the world pouring into our country. Its impact is now being felt in cities across the country. The worst is yet to come. PETER LEMISKA - AND WE'RE ALREADY THERE!!!

Friday, March 6, 2020

DOW TUMBLES - THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF THE SMOKE AND MIRRORS ECONOMY?

Fear grips Wall Street as stocks plunge and Dow sinks another 800 points amid coronavirus chaos despite strong report on American job market

The Dow tumbled a further 800 points Friday morning as trading opened
The S&P 500 and Nasdaq also dropped by almost 3%
A measure of fear in the U.S. stock market surged 22 percent as a tumultuous week reaches a close
The 10-year Treasury yields touched 0.70% Friday, a sign investors are worried about a weaker economy and future inflation
It had never dropped below 1% before this week
An impressive U.S. jobs report wasn't enough to stop the sharp falls
Employers added 273,000 jobs to the market in February suggesting the U.S. the economy was in strong shape before the coronavirus hit
Stocks began to improve slightly as the morning progressed showing a 2% drop

By FRANCES MULRANEY and WIRES

PUBLISHED: 10:17 EST, 6 March 2020 | UPDATED: 12:58 EST, 6 March 2020

Stocks kept falling sharply Friday, and bond yields took even more breathtaking drops as a brutal, dizzying couple weeks of trading showed no sign of letting up amid fears caused by the rising coronavirus death toll in the United States.

At Friday opening, the Dow sank a further 800 points after closing down 970 points on Thursday evening.

The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq were also both down almost 3 percent as large swings in the market continued amid uncertainty over the spread of the coronavirus and its economic fallout.

Even a better-than-expected report on U.S. jobs wasn't enough to pull markets from the undertow.

It's usually the most anticipated piece of economic data each month, but investors looked past February's solid hiring numbers because they came from before the new coronavirus was spreading quickly across the country.

Fear coursed across borders and across markets. The lowlight was another plunge in the yield on the ten-year Treasury.

The three major U.S. stocks began to slowly gain points later Friday morning but still showed losses of around 2 percent.

SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO

A trader works on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange as the Dow sank a further 800 points on Friday morning, a disappointing end to a tumultuous week for Wall Street

A trader studies his screens as he prepares for the day's activities on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on Friday, March 6, as stocks took another tumble when trading opened

The Dow began to rise again but still showed a fall of 1.54% as of 10.53 am EST

Emergency personnel load a person into an ambulance at Life Center of Kirkland a long-term care facility where several residents have contracted coronavirus. The rising infection cases and death toll from the virus is causing panic in the markets as investors show concern

Yields fall when investors are worried about a weaker economy and inflation ahead, and the 10-year yield touched 0.70 percent in Friday morning trading.

Earlier this week, it had never in history been below 1 percent. It was 1.90 percent at the start of the year, before the virus fears took off.

'The low yield on the 10-year Treasury is a sign that the investors are very concerned about future growth in the economy,' Eric Jacobson, senior fixed income research analyst at Morningstar, told the Washington Post.

'That's what happens. When people are worried about everything else, they run to Treasury's because they know they are going to get paid back.'

U.S. stock indexes slumped another 3 percent in the first minutes of Friday trading, following 4 percent losses for Europe and 2 percent losses for Asia. Crude oil lost more than 4 percent in part on worries that an economy weakened by the virus will burn less fuel.

A measure of fear in the U.S. stock market surged 22 percent.

S&p 500 stood at a drop of 1.6 percent as of 10.52 am EST Friday

The NASDAQ regained points but was still showing a drop of 1.61 percents as of 10.54 am EST

The rising death toll and number of cases of the coronavirus has caused havoc for U.S stocks

'The bond market says the monster under the bed is much bigger and scarier than anyone expects right now,' said Ryan Detrick, senior market strategist at LPL Financial.

At the heart of the drops is the fear of the unknown.

This is a new virus, and health experts are't sure how far it will spread and how much damage it will ultimately do.

The number of infections is nearing 100,000 worldwide, people around the world are cancelling travel plans and businesses are reporting hits to revenue.

An interconnected global economy also means many U.S. companies depend on suppliers in countries spread around the world, which raises the risk of business interruptions as the virus and potential quarantines spread.

Not knowing how bad this crisis can ultimately get, some investors are reacting by simply selling. And many experts say they expect such sharp swings in the market to continue as long as the number of new cases accelerates.

The S&P 500 was down 3 percent as of 9.47 am Eastern time on Friday.

How the U.S. job market improved in February

Employers added 273,000 jobs to the U.S. job market

The unemployment rate dropped to 3.5%

The unemployment rate is now at a 50-year low

Wage growth slowed slightly in February

Over the past three months, U.S. employers have added 243,000 jobs

This is the best quarter pace since September 2016

Unseasonably warm weather in February likely boosted hiring in the construction industry

It has been a particularly tumultuous week, and every day has seen a swing of more than 2 percent.

On Monday, it was up 4.6 percent, then down 2.8 percent, up 4.2 percent and down 3.4 percent.

Declines came despite a promising report on the U.S. job market which showed better than expected improvements on the unemployment rate.

Hiring in the United States jumped in February as employers added 273,000 jobs, evidence that the economy was in strong shape before the coronavirus began to sweep through the nation.

The Labor Department said Friday that the unemployment rate fell to 3.5% last month, matching a 50-year low, down from 3.6% in January.

If Friday's moves hold, this will be the first time the S&P 500 has swung more than 2 percent in either direction over five straight days since December 2008. That was during the depths of the financial crisis, when investors worried that the world's financial system may melt down.

On Friday morning, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 753 points, or 2.9 percent, to 25,368, and the Nasdaq fell 2.7 percent.

The S&P 500 had set a record high just two weeks ago, on February 19. It's lost 13 percent since then.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 0.71 percent from 0.92 percent late Thursday.

The two-year yield fell to 0.44 percent from 0.62 percent, and the 30-year yield fell to 1.26 percent from 1.57 percent.

Friday's disappointing start came after the U.S. stocks recorded a decline totaling $3.67 trillion since a market high on February 19.

'The easiest path during this period of uncertainty is to sell first and ask questions later,' Sarat Sethi of Douglas C. Lane & Associates told the Washington Post.

'People need to be prepared for this to continue for a little while. The reaction to this virus will slow economic activity for at least the next couple of quarters. But it won't permanently impair the economy.'

Friday's drop marks the end of one of the most tumultuous weeks in eight years for Wall Street.

The major indexes were down more than 3 percent Thursday, for the fourth time in the past two weeks, a day after they tallied huge gains following Joe Biden’s success on Super Tuesday.

But the declines resumed, along with continued volatility, as investors grappled with the ultimate economic impact from the coronavirus outbreak.

New cases of the disease and rising death tolls in the US has seen more pressure on companies, with numerous airlines canceling flights and some even laying off workers. The International Air Transport Association said Thursday they could see up to $113 billion in losses.

HE DEMOCRAT PARTY'S BANKSTERS WERE REWARDED IN 2008 FOR THEIR PLUNDERING WITH NO INTEREST LOANS, BOTTOMLESS BAILOUTS AND NO PRISON TIME.

HOW WILL IT PLAY OUT THIS TIME?

Warren: We Are Headed for Financial Crisis as Bad as 2008

https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2020/03/05/warren-we-are-headed-for-financial-crisis-as-bad-as-2008/

4:08

Thursday on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) predicted that coronavirus could cause a global financial crisis as large as 2008.

Maddow asked, “You rose to national prominence around the last global financial catastrophe, predicting it, crucially helping explain it while it was happening, and then trying to save us from its impact. This crisis we’re going through now and heading into now because of coronavirus is different. Is it reasonable to be worried this might be a financial disaster of a similar scale?”

Warren said, “Yes.”

She continued, “Understand it this way. Before coronavirus was on anybody’s radar screen, this economy was already showing the cracks. Lending defaults, loan defaults were up. Small businesses were failing and not able to help pay their — not able to service their debts. There were declines in manufacturing. You kind of can see shaky signs in the economy, problem number one. And number two, the Trump administration had spent the bail-out tools. So they’d done this ginormous tax break and ballooned the debt and done rate cuts to juice the economy. And the consequences of both of those had not been investment in the real economy. It had been to do things like stock buybacks that produced things for a handful of folks at the top and executives but didn’t actually create more goods and more services in the economy.”

She added, “So, OK, so you’ve got a kind of cracky economy, and you’ve got the tools spent down and along comes the coronavirus. And now you’re going to get hit again because it’s things like supply chains. The trucks that are stopped in China and just literally the stuff is just not coming over. So manufacturers here in the United States that need 147 parts to put something together to send it out, two of those parts come from China, you’re done. You need to the ingredients to be able to manufacture a drug, and two of those come from China, and you’re just done on this. So that starts twisting the economy. Then part two, you have an economy right now that is deeply interrelated. Five big banks in America now, and they’re not only here, they’re tied all around the world. So as soon as one of these businesses that can’t do its manufacturing or can’t produce its drugs because it has a supply chain problem, can’t make a loan payment, and you start stacking those up all of a sudden—those banks they’re in trouble themselves. More defaults on the loans. Now the banks start to get in trouble.”

She concluded, “There’s a third problem, an incompetent administration. An incompetent administration is like its own natural disaster. When you’ve got a president who engages in magical thinking and says, no, he decided there were only 15 cases, and they would all be gone by April. And whatever it is he decides, my gosh, it almost doesn’t matter what he decides. The point is he’s not listening to the scientists. He’s not listening to the experts on this. And then he picks Mike Pence as the person in the White House who’s really going to be in charge of this. He picked the one person who actually has experience with a health care crisis, and that was back in Indiana, and Mike Pence was in charge as governor as made it a whole lot worse. It’s like the worst of all connections here. So if we were doing our dead-level best and going at this smart, we’d be working on the coronavirus. We’d be working on the tests as you talked about at the top, the vaccines. We would set aside a big fund of money so that we now would let anybody take sick leave who is diagnosed so people can keep themselves inside and try to slow down the spread. There are a lot of steps we could be taking on. They’re not taking them on. They’re engaged in a magical thinking. But there’s also steps we could be taking on the economic front, and it’s not just a rate cut, it’s actually we need to be talking about stimulus now. And look, yeah, they did the tax cuts and ran the debt up, and that makes it a lot tougher for us to get stimulus through now. So all these pieces are related to each other, and none of them are good.”

Déjà Vu? Auto-Loan Delinquency Hits New Record High For, Um … Some Reason

https://hotair.com/archives/2019/02/13/deja-vu-auto-loan-delinquency-hits-new-record-high-um-reason/

ED MORRISSEY February 13, 2019

Is this a failure of the labor market? Or is it a rerun on a smaller scale of the financial crash that created the Great Recession? According to the Federal Reserve of New York, a record number of Americans are three months or more behind on their car payments — even worse than during the crash in the previous decade:

A record 7 million Americans are 90 days or more behind on their auto loan payments, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York reported Tuesday, even more than during the wake of the financial crisis.

Economists warn that this is a red flag. Despite the strong economy and low unemployment rate, many Americans are struggling to pay their bills.

That seems incongruous in an economy where growth has spread out across the spectrum. Job creation has picked up, wages have increased in real terms at the best rate since before the Great Recession, and the overhang of discouraged workers finally appears to be evaporating. Still, the New York Fed blames this on a lack of widespread impact from the economy:

“The substantial and growing number of distressed borrowers suggests that not all Americans have benefited from the strong labor market,” economists at the New York Fed wrote in a blog post.

Maaaayyyyybeee, but there’s something else going on here too. In the same blog post, the NY Fed also notes that the delinquencies are mainly coming from subprime loans:

The flow into serious delinquency (that is, the share of balances that were current or in early delinquency that became 90+ days delinquent) in the fourth quarter of 2018 crept up to 2.4 percent, substantially above the low of 1.5 percent seen in 2012.

In the chart below, we disaggregate the delinquency rate by the borrower’s credit score at origination. The relative performance between each credit score group stands out immediately; but the increase in delinquency is most obvious among the loans of the two groups of lower-score borrowers, shown by the blue and red lines in the chart below. Borrowers with credit scores less than 620 saw their transitions into delinquency exceed 8 percent in the fourth quarter (annualized as a moving sum), a development that is surprising during a strong economy and labor market. Meanwhile, the delinquency transitions among those with the highest credit scores have remained stable and very low. In aggregate, the increasing share of prime loans has partially offset the deteriorating performance of the subprime sector.

That increase in the percentage of prime lending as a hedge against subprime risk has only happened recently. Over the last several years, subprime lending increased significantly, including in the auto-loan market. By 2013, subprime auto lending had increased 18.8%, while subprime auto-loan securities had grown 63.5%. Many of those loans carried high interest rates, sometimes as high as revolving credit-card rates. Did people expect to marry credit risks to high interest rates and not get defaults?

The Washington Post buries the scope of that risk towards the end of their article:

He noted that non-prime and subprime auto loans increased from 28 percent of the market in 2009 to 39 percent in 2015, a reminder of how aggressively lenders went after borrowers who were on the margin of being able to pay. More lenders are giving people six or seven years to repay now vs. four of five years in the past, according to Experian, another tactic to try to make loans look affordable that might not otherwise be.

That’s a more accurate look at the aggressive nature of subprime lenders, which also has echoes of the housing bubble and its 2008 collapse. The NY Fed blames this mainly on “auto finance reporters,” but this chart shows a more nuanced picture:

Half of all auto-finance reporter loans are subprime, which accounts for $75 billion in outstanding debt. However, 25% of all auto loans written by large institutions are also subprime — and that accounts for over $97 billion in outstanding debt. Those “too big to fail” institutions apparently didn’t learn any lessons, and neither did the investors who are buying securities based on subprime debt. And how much backstop are the auto finance reporters getting from the large banks?

The only potential good news is that auto-loan debt isn’t large enough to knock out financial institutions — on its own, anyway. Does anyone want to bet that subprime lending in the housing markets hasn’t followed along in the same manner, though?

Three Ways to Avoid Death of Dollar – and America

By John Horvat II |

Little remains of the vast edifice of family, community and faith relationships that once unified and anchored the American way of life. These things have not disappeared from the horizon. They are still important, but they have deteriorated. There is no more consensus about what they mean, and they no longer serve as anchors of certainty.

One final anchor remains that does unite Americans. This anchor survives despite everything. Now, even this seems targeted for destruction.

The Last Anchor That Unites Everyone

It seems almost irreverent to affirm, but this last anchor is the American dollar. Money is not supposed to be a social anchor. Other more immaterial things—moral, principles, social bonds—should play this role. However, today money bridges the seemingly unbridgeable chasms that polarize the nation in a way nothing else can.

It is not just money. What unites Americans across the board is the dollar, which is accepted everywhere either in its physical or virtual form. No one questions its dominant role. As the world’s reserve currency, it keeps global trade running while everything else falls apart. When the other anchors fail, the dollar is always there to spend ways out of a crisis.

Calling the dollar the last anchor does not mean that money should or does run everything. The dollar is much more than a simple unit of currency. It has immense symbolic importance since it is attached to notions of national sovereignty, power and the American way of life. The dollar sustains the myth of an America that will never fail. Thus, its fall is unimaginable to many Americans who cannot visualize the country without it.

A Culture of Intemperance

However, there is a darker side to the dollar. It facilitates the frenetic intemperance of a culture that rejects limits. People want everything instantly and effortlessly, and the dollar is ever-ready to supply the means to buy fleeting happiness. The government offers its dollar subsidies to keep people dependent and happy. So many others seem willing to sustain this frenzied lifestyle by contracting debt of all types—private, corporate and governmental.

And the dollar is the ideal instrument for this frenzy. It is stable, flexible and plentiful. What sustains the dollar is the world’s willingness to buy U.S. Treasury bonds as a stable investment. There seems to be no limit to the frenetic appetite for these debt dollars worldwide.

However, the dollar cannot solve the nation’s problems no matter how many trillions are thrown at them. Like any currency, the dollar is only as strong as the society that sustains it. With the decline of America’s institutions, it is inevitable that the dollar too will face a decline—perhaps radically and dramatically.

This dollar decline could happen in three different ways, especially in these erratic times.

The Post-2008 U.S. Is Unprepared for New Economic Crises

First, it can be destroyed by overconfidence. The grand myth holds that the dollar cannot be destroyed because it has never been destroyed before, despite several close calls.

There is no logic to this affirmation. All things temporal can be destroyed, especially if they are neglected. However, the argument does carry some weight in a culture that is run on emotions and feelings.

The fact is that the dollar is surviving on borrowed time. The 2008 crisis provoked world finance leaders to use every tool in their toolboxes to fix the crisis. Programs of zero or even negative interest, quantitative easing and other vehicles have all run their course with limited effects. Overconfident Americans need to take notice of dangers on the horizon.

Risks still abound in today’s global economy with trade wars and political tensions. Many economic observers say that should a major crisis hit the world economy, the financial systems could go down. And there are very few new tricks that can be employed to stem the grave damage since the root causes are not being addressed.

The mantra that the dollar is indestructible is hardly reassuring.

The Very Real Debt Threat

The second factor that could cause the dollar’s decline is debt in all its forms, especially American sovereign debt. When the world no longer wants to buy American debt, the crushing burden of high interest rates will have disastrous consequences for the nation.

The present governmental debt shows no sign of diminishing. People have gotten used to the idea of annual $800 billion deficits. It will be the new normal over the coming years as no Senator or U.S. Congressman wants to take things off their shopping lists or face the firestorm of public opprobrium for urging fiscal restraint.

Also, corporate debt now stands at nearly $9 trillion. The quality of investment-grade bonds has deteriorated with many in or bordering on junk category. This debt could trigger defaults, bankruptcies, burst bubbles of immense proportions, all of which will weigh heavily on the dollar.

Similarly, personal debt has climbed back to pre-2008 crisis levels.

Indeed, ours is a world awash in debt of all sizes, types, and nations. As the world’s reserve currency, the dollar cannot escape the reverberations of a world financial crisis when major players default.

Sidelining the Dollar as the World’s Reserve Currency

The final threat is more deliberate and targeted. As the preferred unit of currency in commodity markets, the dollar is under direct attack today through a new European Union mechanism called a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV).

Everyone knows that no currency (or even basket of currencies) can replace the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. However, the European Union, China, Russia and Iran are seeking to create a clearinghouse that will run circles around U.S. sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran. They are setting up a credit system that will allow the barter trading of commodities without the use of American dollars.

In this way, the dollar can come to be challenged and sidelined by many major countries in international trade, and potentially even losing its privileged status.

The Collapse of the Postwar Order

Any of these three ways can drag down the U.S. dollar from its post-World War II throne. This would be disastrous since it would hasten the collapse of the postwar order with no replacement save chaos and disorder.

However, the greatest catastrophe would be for American society. The collapse of America’s last anchor will increase the fragmentation and polarization of the nation. All these three ways are avoidable if America’s political leaders would apply themselves energetically and without further loss of time toward addressing the root causes of the threats the nation faces. It would involve the need for great restraint, sacrifice and new national priorities.

The real problem facing America today is much more a moral problem than an economic one. Society needs anchors, especially moral anchors to unify the nation. When those anchors are gone, the nation is left rudderless in a sea of chaos.

John Horvat II is a scholar, researcher, educator, international speaker, and author of the book Return to Order: From a Frenzied Economy to an Organic Christian Soceity--Where We've Been, How We Go Here, and Where We Need to Go. He lives in Spring Grove, Pennsylvania, where he is the vice president of the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property.

U.S. Congressman Says Many of His Colleagues Are 'Struggling' Financially

By Mark Jennings | June 12, 2019 | 5:14 PM EDT

Rep. Jared Huffman (U.S. government photo)

(CNSNews.com) -- Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) told CNSNews.com on Wednesday that many of his colleagues in the House of Representatives are "struggling" financially. He made the observation in response to a question about whether members of Congress, who now earn $174,000 per year, deserve a pay raise.

“I’ll let the body and the public opinion and other factors decide whether we get a cost of living increase," he said, "but I do know a lot of my colleagues are struggling.”

CNSNews.com asked Huffman: “Congressman Huffman, at $174,000 members of Congress get paid a salary that is 370 percent of the median earnings of a full-time American worker. Do you think the Congress deserves a raise?”

Huffman responded: “I think no one goes into this line of work to get rich. A lot of my colleagues are struggling with the fact that we have housing costs both in home, at our home district, in some cases where real estate values are very high and housing costs are high. And then you have to also have housing here in D.C. So, I know a lot of members are struggling."

“I’ll let the body and the public opinion and other factors decide whether we get a cost of living increase," he said, "but I do know a lot of my colleagues are struggling.”

According to the Congressional Research Service (CRS), regular senators, representatives, delegates, and the resident commissioner from Puerto Rico are paid an annual salary of $174,000.

"The only exceptions include the Speaker of the House (salary of $223,500) and the President pro tempore of the Senate and the majority and minority leaders in the House and Senate (salary of $193,400)," reported the CRS. "These levels have remained unchanged since 2009."

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the median annual earnings of a U.S. worker are $47,016. A salary of $174,000 is 3.7 times the median earnings of $47,016, or 370% higher.

"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

STRIKES ALL OVER AMERICA, THOUSANDS OF RETAIL STORES CLOSING, CAR SALES SLUMP, REAL ESTATE IN THE DOLDRUMS… That is the real “recover”… It only happened for the rich!

Despite a booming economy, many U.S. households are still just holding on

https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-federal-reserve-household-survey-20190523-story.html

By MATTHEW BOESLER

Many U.S. households find themselves in a fragile position financially, even in an economy with an unemployment rate near a 50-year low. (David Sacks / Getty Images)

Many U.S. households find themselves in a fragile position financially, even in an economy with an unemployment rate near a 50-year low, according to a Federal Reserve survey.

The Fed’s 2018 report on the economic well-being of households, published Thursday, indicated “most measures” of well-being and financial resilience “were similar to, or slightly better than, those in 2017.” The slight improvement coincided with a decline in the average unemployment rate to 3.9% last year, from 4.3% in 2017.

Despite the uptick, however, the results of the 2018 survey indicated that almost 40% of Americans would still struggle in the face of a $400 financial emergency. The statistic, which was a bit better than in the 2017 report, has become a favorite rejoinder to President Trump’s boasts about a strong economy from Democratic politicians, including 2020 presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris of California.

“Relatively small, unexpected expenses, such as a car repair or replacing a broken appliance, can be a hardship for many families without adequate savings,” the report said. “When faced with a hypothetical expense of $400, 61% of adults in 2018 say they would cover it, using cash, savings, or a credit card paid off at the next statement,” it added.

“Among the remaining 4 in 10 adults who would have more difficulty covering such an expense, the most common approaches include carrying a balance on credit cards and borrowing from friends or family,” according to the report.

Based on a survey of 11,000 people in October and November 2018, the report showed that a quarter of Americans don’t feel like they are doing "at least OK" financially. That number was higher for black and Latino Americans, at roughly one-third for both. For those making less than $40,000 a year, the share who felt they weren’t doing well was 44%.

“We continue to see the growing U.S. economy supporting most American families,” Fed Gov. Michelle Bowman said in a press release accompanying the report.

“At the same time, the survey does find differences across communities, with just over half of those living in rural areas describing their local economy as good or excellent compared to two-thirds of those living in cities,” Bowman said. “Across the country, many families continue to experience financial distress and struggle to save for retirement and unexpected expenses.”

Boesler writes for Bloomberg

"While America’s working and middle class have been subjected to compete for jobs against a constant flow of cheaper foreign workers — where more than 1.2 million mostly low-skilled immigrants are admitted to the country annually — the billionaire class has experienced historic salary gains." Sen. Josh Hawley

THE BANKSTERS GEAR UP FOR THEIR NEXT MASSIVE BOTTOMELESS BAILOUTS!

Another downward swing on Wall Street

Wall Street had another turbulent session yesterday with market indexes down by more than 3 percent after a surge on Wednesday, fuelled in large measure by the market’s appreciation of the victory of former US Vice-President Joe Biden in the Super Tuesday Democratic primary elections.

The market fall was accompanied by a further decline in bond market interest rates. The yield on the 10-year US Treasury bond fell to a new record low of 0.9 percent, while the yield on the 30-year Treasury bond dropped to 1.55 percent, also a record low.

The move of investors into bonds, sending their prices higher and their yields lower, is an indication that markets are not just expecting, but demanding a further interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve, following its emergency rate reduction of 0.5 percentage points on Tuesday.

The Dow finished down by 970 points yesterday, a fall of 3.6 percent, with the S&P 500 dropping 3.4 percent and the Nasdaq finishing lower by 3.1 percent. So far this week, the Dow has had two days in which it has risen by more than 1,000 points, a one-day drop of more than 800 points and yesterday’s fall of almost 1,000.

The immediate cause of the swings is the conflict between two opposed outlooks.

On the one hand, there is the belief in some quarters that still more money will be made available by the Fed and other central banks, ensuring that the financial elites can continue to rake in money hand over fist—whatever the impact of the coronavirus on the real economy and the lives of millions of people. On the other, some investors fear that the spread of the virus is going to lead to a major economic downturn in the US and around world.

The gyrations in global stock markets have also focused attention on underlying trends in the financial system that are creating the conditions for another crisis on the scale of 2008 or even larger.

A major article, entitled “The seeds of the next debt crisis,” by long-time financial journalist John Plender, published in the Financial Time s this week, brought together some of the most significant developments.

Plender began by noting that the shock the coronavirus has wrought on markets “coincides with a dangerous financial backdrop marked by spiralling global debt.”

The Institute of International Finance has calculated that the ratio of global debt to world gross domestic product has reached an all-time high of more than 332 percent, with total debt now at $235 trillion.

“The implication, if the virus continues to spread, is that any fragilities in the financial system have the potential to trigger a new debt crisis,” Plender wrote.

He noted that, despite lower interest rates, financial conditions have tightened for weaker corporate borrowers because their access to bond markets has become more difficult. This is because, as the fall in Treasury bond yields shows, major investors are seeking a safe haven.

This was signficant, Plender continued, because the debt build-up since 2008 has been concentrated in the non-bank corporate sector “where the current disruption to supply chains and reduced global growth imply lower earnings and greater difficulty in serving debt,” raising the “extraordinary possibility of a credit crunch in a world of ultra-low and negative interest rates.”

Plender drew attention to the dangerous implications of moves by the Fed and other central banks to make still more money available to financial markets. This “policy activism carries a longer-term risk of entrenching the dysfunctional monetary policy that contributed to the original financial crisis, as well as exacerbating the dangerous debt overhang that the global economy now faces.”

BLOG: THERE IS NO “RISK” TO BANKS. THEIR LOSES WILL BE SOCIALISED THROUGH BOTTOMLESS BAILOUTS.

The risks have been continuing to build since the late 1980s when central banks, above all the Fed, pursued an “asymmetric monetary policy” of supporting markets when they plunge but failing to dampen down the formation of bubbles, leading to “excessive risk taking” by banks

The quantitative easing policy pursued since the crisis was a continuation of the asymmetric approach and the resulting safety net under the banking system, Plender commented, is “unprecedented in scale and duration.”

The threat to the stability to the global financial system is not the same as the crisis in 2008, which had its origins in property and mortgage lending markets. Today, it is concentrated in loans to the corporate sector.

A recent report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said that at the end of December last year the global stock of non-financial corporate bonds had reached an all-time high of $13.5 trillion, double the December 2008 level in real terms. The rise has been most marked in the US, where the Fed has estimated that corporate debt has risen from $3.3 trillion before the financial crisis to $6.5 trillion last year.

The rise in corporate debt has been accompanied by a decrease in its quality. There has been a disproportionate increase in the issuance of BBB bonds—the lowest investment grade rating one notch above junk status—that could be downgraded in the event of an economic downturn.

Plender wrote: “That would lead to big increases in borrowing costs because many investors are constrained by regulation or self-imposed restrictions from investing in non-investment grade bonds.”

In other words, any major downgrade, either as a result of financial market turbulence or recessionary trends, would have a cascading effect as major investors would be forced to sell into a falling market.

As Plender noted, the deterioration in debt quality is “particularly striking in the $1.3 trillion market for leveraged loans.” These are loans arranged by syndicates of banks to companies that are already heavily indebted or have weak credit ratings, and whose ratio of debt to assets or earnings is above industry norms. The issuance of such bonds hit a record high of $788 billion in 2017, with the US accounting for $564 billion of the total.

Another factor adding to the potential for a crisis is that much of this debt has not been used to finance new plant and equipment to increase production and sales revenue but to finance mergers and acquisitions, as well as share buybacks to boost stock market valuations—a process that provides very handsome rewards for corporate executives and major finance houses.

Plender warned that the huge accumulation of corporate debt “of increasingly poor quality” was “likely to exacerbate the next recession,” under conditions where the ultra-loose monetary policy had encouraged complacency. This, he added, “is a prerequisite of financial crises.”

While the dangers are most pronounced in the corporate sector, banks would not be immune and could not “escape the consequences of a wider collapse in markets in the event of a continued loss of investor confidence and or a rise in interest rates from today’s extraordinary low levels. Such an outcome would lead to increased defaults on banks’ loans together with a shrinkage in the value of collateral in the banking system.”

And such dangers would persist even if the coronavirus shock passes—and as yet there is no indication of that taking place—because the policies of the central banks have driven investors to search for yield “regardless of the dangers.”

Warren: We Are Headed for Financial Crisis as Bad as 2008

https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2020/03/05/warren-we-are-headed-for-financial-crisis-as-bad-as-2008/

5 Mar 2020630

4:08

Thursday on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) predicted that coronavirus could cause a global financial crisis as large as 2008.

Warren said, “Yes.”

Déjà Vu? Auto-Loan Delinquency Hits New Record High For, Um … Some Reason

https://hotair.com/archives/2019/02/13/deja-vu-auto-loan-delinquency-hits-new-record-high-um-reason/

ED MORRISSEY

A record 7 million Americans are 90 days or more behind on their auto loan payments, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York reported Tuesday, even more than during the wake of the financial crisis.

Economists warn that this is a red flag. Despite the strong economy and low unemployment rate, many Americans are struggling to pay their bills.

“The substantial and growing number of distressed borrowers suggests that not all Americans have benefited from the strong labor market,” economists at the New York Fed wrote in a blog post.

Maaaayyyyybeee, but there’s something else going on here too. In the same blog post, the NY Fed also notes that the delinquencies are mainly coming from subprime loans:

The Washington Post buries the scope of that risk towards the end of their article:

Three Ways to Avoid Death of Dollar – and America

By John Horvat II |

One final anchor remains that does unite Americans. This anchor survives despite everything. Now, even this seems targeted for destruction.

The Last Anchor That Unites Everyone

A Culture of Intemperance

This dollar decline could happen in three different ways, especially in these erratic times.

The Post-2008 U.S. Is Unprepared for New Economic Crises

First, it can be destroyed by overconfidence. The grand myth holds that the dollar cannot be destroyed because it has never been destroyed before, despite several close calls.

The mantra that the dollar is indestructible is hardly reassuring.

The Very Real Debt Threat

Similarly, personal debt has climbed back to pre-2008 crisis levels.

Sidelining the Dollar as the World’s Reserve Currency

In this way, the dollar can come to be challenged and sidelined by many major countries in international trade, and potentially even losing its privileged status.

The Collapse of the Postwar Order

U.S. Congressman Says Many of His Colleagues Are 'Struggling' Financially

By Mark Jennings |

(CNSNews.com) -- Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) told CNSNews.com on Wednesday that many of his colleagues in the House of Representatives are "struggling" financially. He made the observation in response to a question about whether members of Congress, who now earn $174,000 per year, deserve a pay raise.

“I’ll let the body and the public opinion and other factors decide whether we get a cost of living increase," he said, "but I do know a lot of my colleagues are struggling.”

According to the Congressional Research Service (CRS), regular senators, representatives, delegates, and the resident commissioner from Puerto Rico are paid an annual salary of $174,000.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the median annual earnings of a U.S. worker are $47,016. A salary of $174,000 is 3.7 times the median earnings of $47,016, or 370% higher.

STRIKES ALL OVER AMERICA, THOUSANDS OF RETAIL STORES CLOSING, CAR SALES SLUMP, REAL ESTATE IN THE DOLDRUMS… That is the real “recover”… It only happened for the rich!

Despite a booming economy, many U.S. households are still just holding on

https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-federal-reserve-household-survey-20190523-story.html

By MATTHEW BOESLER

Many U.S. households find themselves in a fragile position financially, even in an economy with an unemployment rate near a 50-year low. (David Sacks / Getty Images)

Many U.S. households find themselves in a fragile position financially, even in an economy with an unemployment rate near a 50-year low, according to a Federal Reserve survey.

“We continue to see the growing U.S. economy supporting most American families,” Fed Gov. Michelle Bowman said in a press release accompanying the report.

Boesler writes for Bloomberg

A new Gilded Age has emerged in America — a 21st century version.

The wealth of the top 1% of Americans has grown dramatically in the past four decades, squeezing both the middle class and the poor. This is in sharp contrast to Europe and Asia, where the wealth of the 1% has grown at a more constrained pace.

Josh Hawley: GOP Must Defend Middle Class Americans Against ‘Concentrated Corporate Power,’ Tech Billionaires

JOHN BINDER

The Republican Party must defend America’s working and middle class against “concentrated corporate power” and the monopolization of entire sectors of the United States’ economy, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) says.

In an interview on The Realignment podcast, Hawley said that “long gone are the days where” American workers can depend on big business to look out for their needs and the needs of their communities.

Instead, Hawley explained that increasing “concentrated corporate power” of whole sectors of the American economy — specifically among Silicon Valley’s giant tech conglomerates — is at the expense of working and middle class Americans.

“One of the things Republicans need to recover today is a defense of an open, free-market, of a fair healthy competing market and the length between that and Democratic citizenship,” Hawley said, and continued:

At the end of the day, we are trying to support and sustain here a great democracy. We’re not trying to make a select group of people rich. They’ve already done that. The tech billionaires are already billionaires, they don’t need any more help from government. I’m not interested in trying to help them further. I’m interested in trying to help sustain the great middle of this country that makes our democracy run and that’s the most important challenge of this day.

“You have these businesses who for years now have said ‘Well, we’re based in the United States, but we’re not actually an American company, we’re a global company,'” Hawley said. “And you know, what has driven profits for some of our biggest multinational corporations? It’s been … moving jobs overseas where it’s cheaper … moving your profits out of this country so you don’t have to pay any taxes.”

“I think that we have here at the same time that our economy has become more concentrated, we have bigger and bigger corporations that control more and more of our key sectors, those same corporations see themselves as less and less American and frankly they are less committed to American workers and American communities,” Hawley continued. “That’s turned out to be a problem which is one of the reasons we need to restore good, healthy, robust competition in this country that’s going to push up wages, that’s going to bring jobs back to the middle parts of this country, and most importantly, to the middle and working class of this country.”

While multinational corporations monopolize industries, Hawley said the GOP must defend working and middle class Americans and that big business interests should not come before the needs of American communities:

A free market is one where you can enter it, where there are new ideas, and also by the way, where people can start a small family business, you shouldn’t have to be gigantic in order to succeed in this country. Most people don’t want to start a tech company. [Americans] maybe want to work in their family’s business, which may be some corner shop in a small town … they want to be able to make a living and then give that to their kids or give their kids an option to do that. [Emphasis added]

The problem with corporate concentration is that it tends to kill all of that. The worst thing about corporate concentration is that it inevitably believes to a partnership with big government. Big business and big government always get together, always. And that is exactly what has happened now with the tech sector, for instance, and arguably many other sectors where you have this alliance between big government and big business … whatever you call it, it’s a problem and it’s something we need to address. [Emphasis added]

Hawley blasted the free trade-at-all-costs doctrine that has dominated the Republican and Democrat Party establishments for decades, crediting the globalist economic model with hollowing “out entire industries, entire supply chains” and sending them to China, among other countries.

“The thing is in this country is that not only do we not make very much stuff anymore, we don’t even make the machines that make the stuff,” Hawley said. “The entire supply chain up and down has gone overseas, and a lot of it to China, and this is a result of policies over some decades now.”

As Breitbart News reported, Hawley detailed in the interview how Republicans like former President George H.W. Bush’s ‘New World Order’ agenda and Democrats have helped to create a corporatist economy that disproportionately benefits the nation’s richest executives and donor class.

The billionaire class, the top 0.01 percent of earners, has enjoyed more than 15 times as much wage growth as the bottom 90 percent since 1979. That economy has been reinforced with federal rules that largely benefits the wealthiest of wealthiest earners. A study released last month revealed that the richest Americans are, in fact, paying a lower tax rate than all other Americans.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.

Economists: America’s Elite Pay Lower Tax Rate Than All Other Americans

JOHN BINDER

The wealthiest Americans are paying a lower tax rate than all other Americans, groundbreaking analysis from a pair of economists reveals.

For the first time on record, the wealthiest 400 Americans in 2018 paid a lower tax rate than all of the income groups in the United States, research highlighted by the New York Times from University of California, Berkeley, economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman finds.

The analysis concludes that the country’s top economic elite are paying lower federal, state, and local tax rates than the nation’s working and middle class. Overall, these top 400 wealthy Americans paid just a 23 percent tax rate, which the Times‘ op-ed columnist David Leonhardt notes is a combined tax payment of “less than one-quarter of their total income.”

This 23 percent tax rate for the rich means their rate has been slashed by 47 percentage points since 1950 when their tax rate was 70 percent.

The millennial generation in the US: Life on the brink

For the American ruling elite, life has

never been better.

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.

The stock market is booming, and President Donald Trump is boasting at every turn that the unemployment rate is lower than it has been in five decades.

However, the working class, the vast majority of the population, is confronting an unprecedented social, economic, health and psychological crisis. The same processes that have produced vast sums of wealth for the ruling elite have left millions of workers on the brink of existence.

Perhaps no segment of the population reflects the devastating consequences of these processes so starkly as the generation of young people deemed the “millennials,” those born roughly between the years 1981 and 1996. More than half the 72 million American millennials are now in their 30s, with the oldest turning 38 this year.

A recent exposé by the Wall Street Journal noted that millennials are “in worse financial shape than prior living generations and may not recover.” The article, “Millennials Near Middle Age in Crisis,” concludes by stating that people born in the 1980s are at risk of becoming “America’s Lost generation.”

The older side of this generation was born at the beginning of the Reagan years, which heralded in an era of social counter-revolution against the working class that saw the dismantling of much of the industrial infrastructure of the country, and the restructuring of economic life to benefit the banks, hedge funds and other financial firms, with the collaboration of the trade unions.

By the time these youth reached the job market, the 2008 financial crash hit, vastly accelerating all of the processes begun in the 1980s. The Obama administration organized the bailout of the banks and a massive transfer of wealth from the working class to the rich.

The results have been devastating.

Education

More millennials have a college degree than any other generation of young adults. In 2013, 47 percent of 25- to 34-year-olds received a postsecondary degree. For most, however, getting a college education has not led to a significant increase in quality of living.

Instead, millions of young people are working jobs for which they are vastly overqualified and are shackled with unprecedented levels of debt. For the millennials who did not go to college, the situation is even worse.

· Millennials have taken on 300 percent more student debt than their parents’ generation. [Source: The College Board, Trends in Student Aid 2013]

· The number of hours of minimum wage work needed to pay in-state tuition and fees for each year of a four-year public college for the “Baby Boomer” generation (born between 1946 and 1964) was 510. For millennials, it is 1996. [Source: National Center for Education Statistics. Calculations based on four-year public universities from 1973–1976 and 2003–2006]

· Since 2010, the economy has added 11.6 million jobs, and 11.5 million of them have gone to workers with at least some college education. In 2016, young workers with only a high school diploma had roughly triple the unemployment rate and three-and-a-half times the poverty rate of college grads. [Source: America’s Divided Recovery, Georgetown University]

· Average college debt for millennials that have debt is around $33,000, with the median household income remaining the same since 1999. [Source: PEW Research and USA Today]

· National college debt is now at $1.3 trillion, and college tuition has increased by 1,140 percent since the late 1970s. [Source: Economic Policy Institute (EPI) Wage Stagnation in Nine Charts]

· By 2014, 48 percent of workers with bachelor’s degrees are employed in jobs for which they’re overqualified. [Source: Labor Economist Stephen Rose, published by Urban Institute.]

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.

"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."

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.

Watch–Josh Hawley Rips ‘Aristocratic Elite’ for Engineering U.S. Economy Against American Middle Class

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/05/16/watch-josh-hawley-rips-aristocratic-elite-for-engineering-u-s-economy-against-american-middle-class/

JOHN BINDER

16 May 2019184

6:00

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) ripped what he called the country’s “new aristocratic elite” for engineering the United States economy against the American middle class.

For his first major speech on the Senate floor, Hawley slammed the “big banks, big tech, big multi-national corporations, along with their allies in the academy and the media,” whom he said have created an economic structure in which they, the well-connected, benefit while the American working and middle class increasingly struggle to get ahead.

Hawley said:

The chattering class often tells us that all of this—the jobs, the despair, the loss of standing—is the result of forces beyond anyone’s control. As if that’s an excuse to do nothing. But in fact, it’s not true. [Emphasis added]

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. [Emphasis added]

They operate businesses or run universities here, but their primary loyalty is to their own agenda for a more unified, progressive—and profitable—global order. These modern aristocrats often claim to be a meritocracy. And many of them truly believe they are. What they don’t see, or won’t acknowledge, is that the society they have built works mainly for themselves. They’ve effectively run this country for decades. And their legacy is national division and national decline. [Emphasis added]

Defending the needs of the American middle class against a growingly powerful “aristocratic elite” is the “crisis of our time,” Hawley asserted.

“After years of sacrifice, the great American middle is being pushed aside by a new, arrogant aristocracy,” Hawley said. “The new aristocrats seek to remake society in their own image: to engineer an economy that works for the elite but few else, to fashion a culture that is dominated by their own preferences.”

“This town has embraced a politics of elite values and elite ambition rather than building opportunities to thrive in the great and broad American middle. This has left middle America—the great American middle class—under siege: battling the loss of respect and work, the decline of home and family, an epidemic of loneliness and despair,” Hawley continued. “This is the crisis of our time.”

Specifically, Hawley blasted multinational corporations for outsourcing American middle class jobs overseas — wreaking economic, cultural, and social havoc on rural and small town American communities in the process — and both political establishments for treating American citizens as mere consumers.

“In places like the one where I grew up, in middle Missouri, good-paying jobs that you can raise a family on are going away,” Hawley said. “The jobs go overseas or south of the border or to cities on the coasts. And once-vibrant towns decline, taking with them the network of schools and neighborhoods and churches that make up middle class life.”

Hawley continued:

Rural America has been particularly hard hit. Rural Americans’ life expectancy has not just leveled off, its actually dropped, and for women without a high school degree, that drop has been staggering. In some rural places, residents struggle with outright deprivation. [Emphasis added]

My home state contains some of the poorest counties in America, all in rural places that once boasted thriving small towns. As those communities struggle, want sets in. But the crisis reaches well beyond economics. [Emphasis added]

The message that Washington has sent our whole society is loud and clear: our elites are the people who matter—and those who aspire to join them. Everyone else is unimportant or backwards. And millions of Americans are left with the sense that the people who run this country view them with nothing but contempt and value them as nothing but consumers. [Emphasis added]

Indeed, working and middle class Americans have been hit the hardest from decades-long political consensus between the Republican establishment and Democrats.

Recent research revealed that while coastal, elite metropolis cities have flourished in the last decade, small town and rural American communities have suffered depopulation, mass job loss, and continued economic strain since the Great Recession.

For instance, by 2016, elite zip codes had a surplus of 3.6 million jobs, which is more than the combined bottom 80 percent of American zip codes. While it only took about five years for wealthy cities to replace the jobs lost by the recession, it took “at risk” regions of the country a decade to recover, and “distressed” U.S. communities are “unlikely ever to recover on current trendlines,” the report predicts.

Economic growth among the country’s middle-class counties and middle-class zip codes has considerably trailed national economic growth. For example, between 2012 and 2016, there were 4.4 percent more business establishments in the country as a whole. That growth was less than two percent in the median zip code and there was close to no growth in the median county.

While America’s working and middle class have been subjected to compete for jobs against a constant flow of cheaper foreign workers — where more than 1.2 million mostly low-skilled immigrants are admitted to the country annually — the billionaire class has experienced historic salary gains.

A study by the Economic Policy Institute found that the country’s top 0.01 percent have enjoyed more than 15 times as much wage growth as the bottom 90 percent of wage earners. Between 1979 and 2017, working and middle class Americans’ wages grew by only 22 percent. On the other hand, the plutocrat class saw their salaries grow by more than 155 percent over the same period.

Likewise, free trade deals like NAFTA — supported by Republicans and Democrats — as well as China’s entering the World Trade Organization (WTO) has eliminated nearly five million American manufacturing jobs across the country, devastating steel towns and U.S. autoworkers. One former steel town in West Virginia lost 94 percent of its steel jobs because of NAFTA, with nearly 10,000 workers in the town being displaced from the steel industry.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.

THERE IS A REASON WHY ALL BILLIONAIRES ARE DEMOCRATS!!! IT HAS TO DO WITH OPEN BORDERS TO KEEP WAGES, YOURS, NOT THEIRS, DEPRESSED!

Billionaire Class Enjoys 15X the Wage Growth of American Working Class

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2018/12/23/billionaire-class-enjoys-15x-the-wage-growth-of-american-working-class/

3:00

The billionaire class — the country’s top 0.01 percent of earners — have enjoyed more than 15 times as much wage growth as America’s working and middle class since 1979, new wage data reveals.

Between 1979 and 2017, the wages of the bottom 90 percent — the country’s working and lower middle class — have grown by only about 22 percent, Economic Policy Institute (EPI) researchers find.

Compare that small wage increase over nearly four decades to the booming wage growth of America’s top one percent, who have seen their wages grow more than 155 percent during the same period.

The top 0.01 percent — the country’s billionaire class — saw their wages grow by more than 343 percent in the last four decades, more than 15 times the wage growth of the bottom 90 percent of Americans.

In 1979, America’s working class was earning on average about $29,600 a year. Fast forward to 2017, and the same bottom 90 percent of Americans are earning only about $6,600 more annually.

The almost four decades of wage stagnation among the country’s working and middle class comes as the national immigration policy has allowed for the admission of more than 1.5 million mostly low-skilled immigrants every year.

In the last decade, alone, the U.S. admitted ten million legal immigrants, forcing American workers to compete against a growing population of low-wage workers. Meanwhile, employers are able to reduce wages and drive up their profit margins thanks to the annual low-skilled immigration scheme.

The Washington, DC-imposed mass immigration policy is a boon to corporate executives, Wall Street, big business, and multinational conglomerates as every one percent increase in the immigrant composition of an occupation’s labor force reduces Americans’ hourly wages by 0.4 percent. Every one percent increase in the immigrant workforce reduces Americans’ overall wages by 0.8 percent.

Mass immigration has come at the expense of America’s working and middle class, which has suffered from poor job growth, stagnant wages, and increased public costs to offset the importation of millions of low-skilled foreign nationals.

Four million young Americans enter the workforce every year, but their job opportunities are further diminished as the U.S. imports roughly two new foreign workers for every four American workers who enter the workforce. Even though researchers say 30 percent of the workforce could lose their jobs due to automation by 2030, the U.S. has not stopped importing more than a million foreign nationals every year.

For blue-collar American workers, mass immigration has not only kept wages down but in many cases decreased wages, as Breitbart News reported. Meanwhile, the U.S. continues importing more foreign nationals with whom working-class Americans are forced to compete. In 2016, the U.S. brought in about 1.8 million mostly low-skilled immigrants.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.

Study: Elite Zip Codes Thrived in Obama Recovery, Rural America Left Behind

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2018/12/10/study-elite-zip-codes-thrived-in-obama-recovery-rural-america-left-behind/

Getty Images

10 Dec 2018549

4:49

Wealthy cities and elite zip codes thrived under the slow-moving economic recovery of President Obama while rural American communities were left behind, a study reveals.

The Economic Innovation Group research, highlighted by Axios, details the massive economic inequality between the country’s coastal city elites and middle America’s working class between the Great Recession in 2007 and Obama’s economic recovery in 2016.

Between 2007 and 2016, the number of residents living in elite zip codes grew by more than ten million, with an overwhelming faction of that population growth being driven by mass immigration where the U.S. imports more than 1.5 million illegal and legal immigrants annually.

The booming 44.5 million immigrant populations are concentrated mostly in the country’s major cities like Los Angeles, California, Miami Florida, and New York City, New York. The rapidly growing U.S. population — driven by immigration — is set to hit 404 millionby 2060, a boon for real estate developers, wealthy investors, and corporations, all of which benefit greatly from dense populations and a flooded labor market.

The economic study found that while the population grew in wealthy cities, America’s rural population fell by nearly 3.5 million residents.

Likewise, by 2016, elite zip codes had a surplus of 3.6 million jobs, which is more than the combined bottom 80 percent of American zip codes. While it only took about five years for wealthy cities to replace the jobs lost by the recession, it took “at risk” regions of the country a decade to recover, and “distressed” U.S. communities are “unlikely ever to recover on current trendlines,” the report predicts.

A map included in the research shows how rich, coastal metropolises have boomed economically while entire portions of middle America have been left behind as job and business gains remain concentrated at the top of the income ladder.

(Economic Innovation Group)

Economic growth among the country’s middle-class counties and middle-class zip codes has considerably trailed national economic growth, the study found.

For example, between 2012 and 2016, there were 4.4 percent more business establishments in the country as a whole. That growth was less than two percent in the median zip code and there was close to no growth in the median county.

The same can be said of employment growth, where U.S. employment grew by about 9.3 percent from 2012 to 2016. In the median zip code, though, employment grew by only 5.5 percent and in the median county, employment grew by less than four percent.

“Nearly three in every five large counties added businesses on net over the period, compared to only one in every five small one,” the report concluded.

Elite zip codes added more business establishments during Obama’s economic recovery, between 2012 and 2016, than the entire bottom 80 percent of zip codes combined. For instance, while more than 180,000 businesses have been added to rich zip codes, the country’s bottom tier has lost more than 13,000 businesses even after the economic recovery.

(Economic Innovation Group)

The gutting of the American manufacturing base, through free trade, has been a driving catalyst for the collapse of the white working class and black Americans. Simultaneously, the outsourcing of the economy has brought major wealth to corporations, tech conglomerates, and Wall Street.

The dramatic decline of U.S. manufacturing at the hands of free trade—where more than 3.4 million American jobs have been lost solely due to free trade with China, not including the American jobs lost due to agreements like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the United States-Korea Free Trade Agreement (KORUS)—has coincided with growing wage inequality for white and black Americans, a growing number of single mother households, a drop in U.S. marriage rates, a general stagnation of working and middle class wages, and specifically, increased black American unemployment.

“So, the loss of manufacturing work since 1960 represents a steady decline in relatively high-paying jobs for less-educated workers,” recent research from economist Eric D. Gould has noted.

Fast-forward to the modern economy and the wage trend has been the opposite of what it was during the peak of manufacturing in the U.S. An Economic Policy Institute studyfound this year that been 2009 and 2015, the top one percent of American families earned about 26 times as much income as the bottom 99 percent of Americans.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.

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.

Graph from the Economic Policy Institute

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’

http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2015/04/charity-navigator-clinton-foundation.html

Millionaires projected to own 46 percent of global private wealth by 2019

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.

http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2014/10/how-barack-obama-and-his-crony.html

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

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.”

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

http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2015/06/hillary-clinton-successor-to-hope-and.html

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!

http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2015/06/sen-bernie-sanders-americas-only-answer.html

“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.

http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2014/12/obamanomics-at-work-depressed-wages-and.html

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.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/most_recent_videos/2013_03/megan_mcardle_discusses_how_america_s_elites_are_rigging_the_rules

http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2013/03/obamas-wall-street-and-looting-of.html

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!

http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2013/09/obamas-crony-capitalism-last-week-obama.html

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

http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2013/05/pritzker-obama-adds-to-his-harem-of.html

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?

http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2015/05/patrick-buchanan-when-obama-bankrupted.html

OBAMANOMICS: IS IT WORKING???

Millionaires projected to own 46 percent of global private wealth by 2019

By Gabriel Black
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).

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.

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.

THE CRONY CLASS:

OBAMACLINTONOMICS was created by BILLARY CLINTON!

Income inequality grows FOUR TIMES FASTER under Obama than Bush.

http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2014/12/obamanomics-at-work-depressed-wages-and.html

OBAMA’S WALL STREET and the LOOTING of AMERICA – SECOND TERM

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/most_recent_videos/2013_03/megan_mcardle_discusses_how_america_s_elites_are_rigging_the_rules

http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2013/03/obamas-wall-street-and-looting-of.html

OBAMA’S CRONY CAPITALISM

A NATION RULED BY CRIMINAL WALL STREET BANKSTERS AND OBAMA DONORS

http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2013/05/pritzker-obama-adds-to-his-harem-of.html

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).

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.

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.

http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2015/06/obama-clintonomics-at-work-millionaires.html

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!

http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2014/09/soaring-poverty-in-america-good-time-to.html

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

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.

DESTROYING AMERICAN ONE INVADING ILLEGAL AT A TIME…

IS THE U.S. CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

THE GREATEST ENEMY OF THE

AMERICAN (Legal) WORKER?

https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2019/05/the-us-chamber-of-commerce-fascist-arm.html

What this means is that what is good for Main Street will not be good for Wall Street and Big Biz, at least not in the short run. What benefits the American worker -- fair trade policy and tight immigration control -- will initially hurt Big Biz and Wall Street.

Many Americans say they are STILL worse off financially than they were before the Great Recession

· A third say their financial situation has not improved since December 2007

· A quarter say that their finances are actually worse than prior to the recession

· Economy is nearing a record-long expansion and unemployment is low

· But underemployment and stagnant wages continue to impact broad swathes

By KEITH GRIFFITH FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

Many Americans say their financial situation has failed to improve or even gotten worse since the Great Recession, indicating that the rising tide of the recovery has not lifted all boats.

Among those who were adults when the recession began in December 2007, 33 per cent say their financial situation has not improved, while 23 per cent say it has actually gotten worse, according to the new survey from Bankrate.

'The echoes of the financial crisis and Great Recession remain very present in the financial lives of many Americans, despite the improvement in the broader economy,' said Mark Hamrick, Bankrate's senior economic analyst.

'While some have managed to prosper in the decade since, there are still tens of millions who are struggling to even get back to where they were before the economy took a turn for the worse.'

Among those who were adults when the recession began in December 2007, 33 per cent say their financial situation has not improved, while 23 per cent say it has actually gotten worse

Among the different generations, 25 per cent of baby boomers said they were worse off, compared to just 19 percent for the Silent Generation and millennials.

In July, the U.S. economy's expansion will become the longest on record, and unemployment is at its lowest rate since 1969.

But the survey indicates that the economic benefits have not been felt by all - and stagnant wages are likely one big reason.

More than half - 54 per cent - said their wages or salaries still haven’t recovered to their level before the recession.

Another 31 per cent said their wages were actually lower now than before the recession, while 32 per cent said they were about the same.

More than half - 54 per cent - said their wages or salaries still haven’t recovered to their level before the recession, while 31 per cent said their wages are actually lower now

In Bankrate’s survey, most of the individuals who saw improvement in their wages belonged to the top income level, or those who make $80,000 a year or more.

Those with only a high school degree or less report significant struggles with wages, with 60 per cent saying their wages haven't returned to pre-recession levels.

For those with some college or a two-year degree, that number is 52 per cent, and for those with at least a college degree it is 46 per cent.

Fifty-eight per cent of women said their wages hadn't recovered to pre-recession levels, compared to 48 per cent of men.

The Bankrate survey also examined how Americans were impacted by the recession, which lasted from late 2007 to 2009.

Two in 10 Americans reported that their home lost value during the downtown (file photo)

Nineteen per cent said they lost money in the stock market, another 19 per cent incurred substantial debt, and 15 per cent said either they or their partner lost a job

Two in 10 Americans reported that their home lost value during the downtown.

Nineteen per cent said they lost money in the stock market, another 19 per cent incurred substantial debt, and 15 per cent said either they or their partner lost a job.

Seven per cent reported depletion of their emergency funds, while 6 per cent tapped into their retirement savings.

The survey of 2,740 adults was conducted online between May 15 and 14, using weighting to represent the U.S. population.

Study: Nearly 1M Migrant Children Could Enter U.S. Before 2020 Election

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/04/17/study-nearly-1m-migrant-children-could-enter-u-s-before-2020-election/

Spencer Platt/Getty Images

JOHN BINDER

17 Apr 20190

2:57

Nearly one million migrant children could enter the United States, either unaccompanied or with their border crossing parents, before the 2020 election if projected rates of illegal immigration pan out, new research finds.

Current illegal immigration projections by Princeton Policy Advisors researcher Steven Kopits predicts that there could be about 1.28 million border apprehensions this calendar year — a rate of illegal immigration that would exceed every fiscal year of former Presidents George W. Bush and Obama.

Kopits’ finds that up to 300,000 migrant children could enter the country by the time school begins in September for most students under a scenario where illegal immigration continues at projected rates throughout the next year and a half.

Assuming 80 percent of these migrant children enroll in school, the U.S. could be faced with absorbing 240,000 new migrant school students across the country –and specifically states like California, New York, Texas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, and New Jersey — this coming school year, alone.

For the 2019 to 2020 school year, for instance, California would be forced to absorb about 50,000 new migrant students. Likewise, Texas would see an influx of about 36,000 migrant students.

Fast forward to the beginning of the next school year, September 2020 to June 2021, and the U.S. could have nearly a million new migrant children in the country before the 2020 presidential election, about 800,000 of which could enroll in school systems, under the mass migration scenario.

(Princeton Policy Advisors)

“Should the situation not be resolved and asylum seeking continue at the pace we anticipate for the coming year, by September 2020, nearly 1,000,000 asylum children could be in the US (arriving Jan. 2019 – Aug. 2020),” Kopits writes.

This translates to California’s public school system having to take about 168,000 new migrant students at the beginning of next year’s school year while Florida would see an influx of about 59,000 and for New Jersey, an influx of about 36,000. Texas would see an influx of about 120,000 new migrant students.

Skyrocketing illegal immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border has not only strained public resources but could choke 4 percent wage hikes that President Trump has delivered to America’s blue collar and working class.

Experts like former Secretary of State Kris Kobach have warned that if illegal immigration levels continue to rise over this year and throughout 2020, those wage hikes will be depleted by a saturated labor market with more cheap, foreign workers competing against Americans.

Every year, the U.S. admits more than 1.5 million illegal and legal immigrants, with more than 70 percent arriving through chain migration. In 2017, the foreign-born population reached a record high of 44.5 million. By 2023, the Center for Immigration Studies estimates that the legal and illegal immigrant population of the U.S. will make up nearly 15 percent of the entire U.S. population.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.

California became a Democratic stronghold not because Californians became socialists, but because millions of socialists moved there. Immigration turned California blue,

and immigration is ultimately to blame for California's high poverty level.

Friday, March 6, 2020

DOW TUMBLES - THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF THE SMOKE AND MIRRORS ECONOMY?

Fear grips Wall Street as stocks plunge and Dow sinks another 800 points amid coronavirus chaos despite strong report on American job market

Dow opens 700 points down as the coronavirus epidemic…

US Dow and Nasdaq stocks plummet due to coronavirus…

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Matthew misses out on 'dream job' due to positive d…

How the U.S. job market improved in February

Déjà Vu? Auto-Loan Delinquency Hits New Record High For, Um … Some Reason

https://hotair.com/archives/2019/02/13/deja-vu-auto-loan-delinquency-hits-new-record-high-um-reason/

Three Ways to Avoid Death of Dollar – and America

U.S. Congressman Says Many of His Colleagues Are 'Struggling' Financially

STRIKES ALL OVER AMERICA, THOUSANDS OF RETAIL STORES CLOSING, CAR SALES SLUMP, REAL ESTATE IN THE DOLDRUMS… That is the real “recover”… It only happened for the rich!

Despite a booming economy, many U.S. households are still just holding on

https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-federal-reserve-household-survey-20190523-story.html

Another downward swing on Wall Street

Warren: We Are Headed for Financial Crisis as Bad as 2008

Déjà Vu? Auto-Loan Delinquency Hits New Record High For, Um … Some Reason

https://hotair.com/archives/2019/02/13/deja-vu-auto-loan-delinquency-hits-new-record-high-um-reason/

Three Ways to Avoid Death of Dollar – and America

U.S. Congressman Says Many of His Colleagues Are 'Struggling' Financially

STRIKES ALL OVER AMERICA, THOUSANDS OF RETAIL STORES CLOSING, CAR SALES SLUMP, REAL ESTATE IN THE DOLDRUMS… That is the real “recover”… It only happened for the rich!

Despite a booming economy, many U.S. households are still just holding on

https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-federal-reserve-household-survey-20190523-story.html

Josh Hawley: GOP Must Defend Middle Class Americans Against ‘Concentrated Corporate Power,’ Tech Billionaires

The Republican Party must defend America’s working and middle class against “concentrated corporate power” and the monopolization of entire sectors of the United States’ economy, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) says.

The wealthiest Americans are paying a lower tax rate than all other Americans, groundbreaking analysis from a pair of economists reveals.

The millennial generation in the US: Life on the brink

Education

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) ripped what he called the country’s “new aristocratic elite” for engineering the United States economy against the American middle class.

The billionaire class — the country’s top 0.01 percent of earners — have enjoyed more than 15 times as much wage growth as America’s working and middle class since 1979, new wage data reveals.

Study: Elite Zip Codes Thrived in Obama Recovery, Rural America Left Behind

Wealthy cities and elite zip codes thrived under the slow-moving economic recovery of President Obama while rural American communities were left behind, a study reveals.

Record high income in 2017 for top one percent of wage earners in US

OBAMA: SERVANT OF THE 1%

Richest one percent controls nearly half of global wealth

Millionaires projected to own 46 percent of global private wealth by 2019

By Gabriel Black

By Gabriel BlackHouseholds 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).

Millionaires projected to own 46 percent of global private wealth by 2019

By Gabriel Black18 June 2015

Federal Reserve documents stagnant state of US economy

Many Americans say they are STILL worse off financially than they were before the Great Recession

Study: Nearly 1M Migrant Children Could Enter U.S. Before 2020 Election

Nearly one million migrant children could enter the United States, either unaccompanied or with their border crossing parents, before the 2020 election if projected rates of illegal immigration pan out, new research finds.

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By Gabriel Black
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).

By Gabriel Black
18 June 2015