House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
(Screenshot)
“Have you fed them? We feed them,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer when he suggested Pelosi should accept a compromise on the coronavirus relief bill because “people are on the street, begging for food, begging for money.”
On Tuesday’s “Situation Room,” Host Wolf Blitzer asked Speaker Pelosi why she’s refusing to accept any offers of compromise on coronavirus stimulus when Americans “need the money right now” and her fellow Democrats don’t want her to “let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”
Towards the end of the contentious debate on the subject, when Pelosi called for Blitzer to be sensitive to the needs of her constituents, Blitzer responded:
“I am sensitive to them because I see them on the street, begging for food, begging for money. Madame Speaker, thank you so much.”
“Have you fed them? We feed them. We feed them,” Pelosi declared.
Pelosi attacked Blitzer throughout the interview for suggesting that there’s an urgent need to compromise, telling him:
- “You all think you know more about the suffering of the American people than those of us who are elected by them to represent them at that table.”
- “You really don’t know what you’re talking about.”
- “I don't know why you're always an apologist — and many of your colleagues — apologists for the Republican position.”
- “Do you have any idea what the difference is between the spending that they have in their bill and that we have in our bill?”
- “[You’re] defending the administration all this time with no knowledge of the difference between our two bills.”
In a recent interview with Bloomberg News, Pelosi voiced her disdain for compromise on coronavirus relief, saying compromise would be unacceptable because it would be “a missed opportunity” to get all of what she wants.
At one point, Pelosi got so worked up that she accused Blitzer of “apologizing for Obama”:
“So you're the apologizing for the Obama — excuse me. God forbid. Thank God for Barack Obama.”
This
process was sped up by the 2008 financial crisis, in which the Obama
administration took measures to gut autoworkers’ pay while funneling trillions
of dollars to Wall Street.
According
to a Bloomberg analysis of the data, the richest 50
Americans now have as much wealth as the bottom half of the population. The
increased concentration of wealth at the top in the course of 2020 is the
result of the unprecedented injection of money into the stock market by the
Fed, which has led to an explosive growth in the fortunes of moguls such as
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Tesla chief Elon Musk and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Richest 50 Americans now have as much
wealth as bottom 165 million
The
Federal Reserve released data this week on US household wealth that documents
the acceleration of wealth inequality during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In
the second quarter of 2020, the bottom 50 percent of households—some 165
million people—held $2.08 trillion, or $12,600 per person, while the richest
one percent of the population controlled $34.2 trillion, i.e., over $10.4
million per person. In percentile terms, the top one percent of the population
held 30.5 percent of all wealth, while the bottom 50 percent controlled only
1.9 percent.
According to a Bloomberg analysis of the
data, the richest 50 Americans now have as much wealth as the bottom half of
the population. The increased concentration of wealth at the top in the course
of 2020 is the result of the unprecedented injection of money into the stock
market by the Fed, which has led to an explosive growth in the fortunes of
moguls such as Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Tesla chief Elon Musk and Facebook CEO
Mark Zuckerberg.
The
divide in wealth appears even more gigantic when one looks at the top 10
percent of the population as a whole. Combined, the top one percent and next
nine percent held 69 percent of the nation’s wealth at the end of the second
quarter of 2020, a total of $77.32 trillion.
Between
the first and second quarter of 2020, the top one percent of the population
increased its share of the country’s wealth from 30 percent to 30.5 percent.
The biggest losers were those in the 50 to 90 percentile range of wealth
holders, who saw their overall share shrink from 29.7 percent to 29.1 percent.
The 90 to 99 percentile and the bottom half remained largely unchanged.
While
these changes may appear slight, they actually represent a substantial shift in
a short period of time. The top one percent of the population substantially
increased its share of the country’s wealth as the Fed effectively printed over
$3 trillion and injected it into the financial markets. Better-off sections
of workers, who, unlike the bottom half of the working class, have some level
of savings, retirement funds or other assets, saw their wealth share decline,
as they were forced to draw on savings amidst the global downturn.
One
explanation for this sharpening division between, roughly, the top 10 percent
of the population and the bottom 90 percent of the population is the
disproportionate ownership of stocks and mutual funds. The top one percent of
the population owns 52.4 percent of all corporate equities (stocks) and mutual
funds, the next nine percent owns 35.8 percent.
Combined,
88.2 percent of the US economy, as represented in corporate equities and mutual
funds, is owned by just 10 percent of the population.
While
the bottom half of the population has for the last several decades held only
one percent of the nation’s stocks, better-off sections of the working class,
the 50th to 90th percentiles, held 21.4 percent of this wealth in the early
2000s. However, today this share has fallen to just 11.2 percent. In other
words, better-off sections of the working class, less connected to the
financial markets, have seen their fortunes move in an opposite direction to
those in the top 10 percent of the population.
Another
interesting feature of the Fed data is its breakdown by age group. The
Millennial group—those born between 1981 and 1996—is today the largest share of
the American workforce, accounting for 72 million workers. However, Millennials
own just 4.6 percent of US wealth.
In
contrast, the data shows that in 1989, when the typical member of the Baby
Boomer generation was 34, that generation controlled about 21 percent of
wealth.
This
contrast between the wealth of Millennials and that of Boomers at similar times
in their life cycles reflects the incredible difficulty that young people today
face in landing a decent-paying job, paying for college and paying for health
care, let alone taking out a mortgage, raising a family and saving for
retirement.
The
Fed data comes on top of several other recent reports and announcements about
social inequality, including:
- A UBS report showing that the world’s
billionaires have increased their wealth by over $1.3 trillion, more than
10 percent, in just three years.
- An announcement by the World
Bank that the fallout from COVID-19 will push as many as 150 million
people into what it classifies as extreme poverty (living on less than
$1.90 per day) by 2021. This is the first time the number of people in
extreme poverty has increased since 1998.
- A Wall Street Journal report
that, using Labor Department data, demonstrated the divergence of fortunes
for educated and noneducated workers amid the pandemic. The Journal found
that, while those with college degrees have nearly recovered from COVID-19
job losses (which were smaller), high school dropouts still have 18
percent fewer jobs.
- A RAND report that found the bottom 90
percent of Americans would be making 67 percent more without last four
decades of deepening inequality.
The
ever-growing concentration of wealth at the top of the population weighs like a
malignant tumor over society. No social problem, whether it be inequality,
global warming, education, health care, retirement or the pandemic, can be
solved without mobilizing these vast fortunes at the top and placing them under
the democratic control of the broad majority of the population.
The
process of extreme class restructuring, and the decimation of the ranks of the
better-off, “middle-class” workers depicted in the Fed data, has been underway
for at least 40 years. Under Democratic no less than Republican leadership,
president after president, Congress after Congress, policies have been carried
out that inflated the wealth of the ultra-rich while degrading the conditions
of the working class.
This
process was sped up by the 2008 financial crisis, in which the Obama
administration took measures to gut autoworkers’ pay while funneling trillions
of dollars to Wall Street.
Now,
a similar but even more drastic social restructuring is underway in response to
the COVID-19 pandemic. Millions have been thrown into long-term joblessness and
poverty, while $3 trillion have been injected into the financial markets and
hundreds of billions of dollars given out to major corporations under the
bipartisan CARES Act.
The
needs of the working class—the broad majority of the population—stand in direct
conflict with the interests of the parasitic financial elite. The major banks
and corporations, which control nearly every aspect of global life today, must
be placed under the democratic ownership and supervision of the working class
so that that the needs of the population can be met.
As pandemic death toll approaches 200,000,
American oligarchs celebrate their wealth
The
United States is passing through a historic social, economic and political
crisis. The death toll from the coronavirus pandemic is nearing 200,000 and
could double by the end of the year. Democratic forms of rule are breaking
down, with the Trump administration intensifying its open incitement of
fascistic violence. Tens of millions are unemployed and face impoverishment and
homelessness. Wildfires are burning out of control on the US West Coast.
It
is impossible to understand any of these processes outside of the massive
levels of social inequality. The United States is an oligarchy, with a
concentration of wealth that is historically unprecedented.
The
release of the Forbes 400 billionaire report gives a sense of this reality. The
richest 400 individuals (0.00012 percent of the population) now possess more
than $3 trillion.
The
report declares: “Pandemic be damned: America’s 400 richest are worth a record
$3.2 trillion, up $240 billion from a year ago, aided by a stock market that
has defied the virus.” The surge in the stock market, underwritten by the
multi-trillion-dollar CARES Act passed in March, has filled the already
overflowing coffers of the super-rich, who now hold claim to the equivalent of
15 percent of the country’s gross domestic product.
Even
the numbers provided by Forbes, based on figures from July 24,
are a major underestimation of the current reality. Since that time, the wealth
of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest person, has shot up to more than
$200 billion, while the wealth of Tesla CEO Elon Musk has grown to over $100
billion. Bezos’s holdings are three million times greater than the annual
income of the typical American household.
The
staggering level of inequality reflected in the Forbes list
is the central feature of American society, which is defined by the transfer of
obscene and ever larger amounts of wealth from the working class into the hands
of a tiny financial oligarchy through tax cuts, bailouts, the slashing of wages
and the clawing back of pensions and other benefits won by workers in the
struggles of the 20th century.
The
latest rise in the billionaires’ wealth is not based on any exertion of labor
on their part, but on the inflation of the stock market, with trillions of
dollars in debt from the Federal Reserve and Congress, which will be paid off
the backs of the working class. Everything has been subordinated to ensuring
that the Dow and the S&P 500 rise to new heights.
It
would take the median American, who earns $33,000 per year, 97 million years to
earn as much as is controlled by the wealthiest Americans. Consider what $3.2
trillion could pay for in a year:
- In the 2016-17 school year, $739
billion was spent on public elementary and secondary schools, providing
education for 50.8 million students and employing 3.2 million teachers and
another 3.2 million school employees.
- The Congressional Budget Office
projects that the federal government will spend $1.3 trillion on health
care programs this year.
- Diabetes cost the US economy
$327 billion in 2017, with insulin accounting for $40 billion of this
total. The average cost of insulin, critical for the survival of diabetes
patients, is up to $6,000 per year and continues to rise.
- According to the US Department
of Agriculture, $800 billion was spent by Americans on food and beverages
for consumption at home in 2019. The federal government provided $60
billion of this in food stamps for the poorest and most vulnerable to gain
access to essential nutrition.
- The 2018 fire season cost $24
billion, driven by record devastation, including the destruction of the
city of Paradise, California. All told, extreme weather and climate
disasters that year cost $91 billion.
Added
up, the wealth of just 400 people could pay for an entire year of public
education, health care, nutrition and disaster relief for millions of
Americans. The UN recently reported that 132 million more people will go hungry
worldwide this year due to the pandemic, driving the number of undernourished
close to 1 billion.
Despite
the burning need to save millions from malnourishment and starvation, the World
Food Program faces a shortage of $5 billion in its effort to deliver food to
those in need. The wealth of the 400 richest people in the US is more than 600
times this amount.
Every
element of politics is subordinated to the interests of this social layer. It
is for this reason that the danger of the pandemic was initially covered up,
the bailout of Wall Street was organized and the back-to-work and
back-to-school campaigns were implemented.
The
systematic looting of society left the country vulnerable to such an outbreak.
The subordination of health care to the predatory interests of for-profit
health care companies and insurance giants turned nursing homes for the elderly
into death chambers and left nurses and doctors without the necessary personal
protective equipment and other medical equipment—such as ventilators—needed to
treat patients.
The
drive of the Trump administration toward fascism and the cultivation of the
extreme right cannot be understood except in relation to the class interests of
the oligarchy, representing that faction of the ruling class that seeks to
smash outright any sign of opposition from the working class. On the other side
of the coin, the Democrats represent the faction that seeks to use the politics
of race and identity to smother the class struggle, while cultivating sections
of the upper-middle class that use the politics of race and gender to fight for
access to positions of power and carve out for themselves a bigger share of the
wealth of the top 10 percent.
As
only the latest example, the racially fixated New York Times published
its “Faces of Power” list this week, noting that too many people in
“influential positions” are white. What difference would it make if everyone
one on the list were black, Hispanic, Asian or Native American? In fact, the
report found that a majority of police chiefs in the largest cities are black
or Hispanic: Cold comfort for the young black men who are disproportionately
killed by police.
The
obsession among upper-middle class academics and journalists on race and gender
is a distraction from the grotesque levels of wealth that define social
relations in American society. This form of politics has nothing to do with the
interests of the working class. Instead, it seeks to harness anger over racism
and social inequality to advance the interests of a small layer of minorities
in the top 10 percent who want a larger piece of the pie hoarded by the top 1
percent.
At
every point, science, reason and human solidarity collide with the economic
interests of the current rulers of society—the oligarchs, the parasitic masters
of finance capital. It is impossible to defend democratic rights or save lives
without confronting this issue.
Mass
problems such as the COVID-19 pandemic, increasingly deadly fires fueled by
climate change and global hunger require mass solutions. The problems of
mankind cannot be resolved without breaking the stranglehold of the capitalist
oligarchy in every country. Its wealth must be expropriated and directed toward
meeting social needs. The large corporations and banks must be transformed by
the working class into democratically controlled institutions oriented to
meeting human need and not private profit.
The
social inequality that characterizes capitalist society—and all the policies
that flow from it—are fueling an immense growth of social anger and working
class struggle. These struggles must be organized and united on the basis of a
conscious, revolutionary and socialist program.
ALL BILLIONAIRES ARE GLOBALIST DEMOCRATS. ALL BILLIONAIRES WANT
AMNESTY AND WIDER OPEN BORDERS. ALL BILLIONAIRES WANT NO CAPS ON IMPORTING CHEAPER
FOREIGN WORKER.
Further, the dubious
choice of Kamala Harris as the vice presidential nominee was made solely
to placate and reassure Wall
Street and the wealthy, as she was viewed by them as being very deferential to
the mega-rich class based on her days in California.
Millionaire Democrat Donor Says Joe Biden Will Be Good for
Wall Street
Scott
Olson/Getty Images
15 Sep 2020395
2:53
A millionaire Democrat donor, who
was once listed as a billionaire by Forbes, says Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden will be
good for Wall Street in the long run.
Michael Novogratz, the former Goldman Sachs executive and hedge
fund manager, told CNBC in an
interview that while a Biden win against President Donald Trump may initially
drag the market down, Wall Street will stand to benefit.
“I think Biden’s going to win. I hope Biden wins,” said
Novogratz, who now runs an investment firm. “But if he wins, I think the market
will go down, at least initially because he’s going to raise capital gains tax
… he’s going to raise corporate taxes some and he’s going to raise personal
income tax.”
“I think it’s probably better for the markets [if Biden
wins] because the chaos Trump brings every week, every day just gets tiring,”
Novogratz said.
Novogratz donated $200,000 to
the Biden Action Fund in June.
Despite endorsements from Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and
Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Novogratz said Biden and running mate Sen. Kamala
Harris’s (D-CA) platform “sounds a lot more conservative than the Republican
team when you’re talking about their plans.”
“There’s going to be so much pressure to start redistributing
wealth whether it’s paying for college, paying for loans, if it’s Medicare for
All,” Novogratz said. “Those are things the Democrat Party cares about and
there’s going to be pressure and maybe we’re not going to get all of those but
we’ll be heading in that direction. So I don’t see our deficits miraculously
collapsing.”
Biden and Harris have sought to distance themselves from their
large Wall Street backing in recent weeks. Although Biden blasted Wall Street
executives in a town hall with the AFL-CIO union, a new report revealed that the
former vice president’s campaign has assured Wall Street donors that his
administration will maintain an economic status quo to their benefit.
This month, Biden touted Wall Street’s
support for his plan to abolish America’s suburbs by seizing control of local
zoning laws to construct housing developments and multi-family buildings in
neighborhoods. Likewise, Wall Street is fully behind Biden’s plan
to hugely expand legal
immigration levels, beyond already historical highs at 1.2 million green cards
and 1.4 million visa workers a year.
The Biden-Harris ticket has elated Wall Street
so much that for the first time in a decade, more financial executives are
donating to the Democrat candidates than Republicans, the latest Center for
Responsive Politics analysis reveals.
John Binder is a reporter for
Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
Biden’s Billionaires
By Steve McCann
Many years ago, while
participating in a voter registration drive, I came upon a grizzled and
disheveled old man sitting in the overgrown and weed-infested yard of his
paint-starved house calming smoking his pipe. Despite his gruff demeanor,
Ully (Ulysses) was very pleasant and loquacious as we talked for over an hour
on topics ranging from the weather to the innate foibles of mankind. It
turned out that he had to leave school after the fourth grade in order to work
in the fields to help support his family and had toiled in a variety of menial
and labor-intensive jobs ever since. Yet, he had a deep and thorough
insight into human nature. Among his comments about the rich and
ostensibly well-educated was: “All the money in the world cain’t buy a fool a
lick of common sense.”
I was reminded of that
observation after reading an article describing the 131 billionaires who are pouring
millions into the coffers of the Democrat party and Joe Biden’s campaign in
their mindless obsession to defeat President Trump in November. Among the
prominent names are Jeff Skoll, a founder of eBay who has contributed $4.5
million; Laurene Powell Jobs of Apple and owner
of The Atlantic magazine has donated $1.2 million,
and Josh Bekenstein, Chairman of Bain
Capital (co-founded by Mitt Romney), $5 million.
Far more Wall Street
financers have also jumped on the Biden/Democrat party bandwagon than are
supporting Donald Trump, whose policies have overwhelmingly revived the economy
after the stagnation of the Obama-Biden years. The tech billionaires, not content to simply
cough up untold millions in direct political contributions, are also funding
massive voter drives, promoting mail-in balloting, creating divisive partisan
news sites, aiding and designing the Democrat party’s digital campaigns and
unabashedly censoring the social media accounts of the Trump campaign and
innumerable conservatives.
The political party they
are gleefully underwriting in order to oust Trump is no longer the party of the
middle and working class (which is now one and the same) but a two-tier
assemblage in which the prey is sleeping with the predator. The witless
wealthy and socially aware are in bed with the avowed socialists and militant
Marxists. What is holding this marriage of convenience together is a
mutual hatred of Donald Trump and the undoable promises made by Joe Biden and
the Democrat party hierarchy.
In a 2019 meeting with
100 super-wealthy potential donors, Biden assured the gathering that he would
not demonize the rich and would only increase their taxes slightly while
ensuring that their standard of living would not be affected by any of his
policies.
He also
stated: “I’m not Bernie Sanders. I don’t think 500 Billionaires are the reason
why we are in trouble”. Further, he unabashedly emphasized that the
wealthy are not the reason for income inequality and “If I win this
nomination. I won’t let you
down. I promise you.”
Further, the dubious
choice of Kamala Harris as the vice presidential nominee was made solely
to placate and reassure Wall
Street and the wealthy, as she was viewed by them as being very deferential to
the mega-rich class based on her days in California.
When the time came to
deal with the Marxist/socialist wing of the Democrat party’s anti-Trump
coalition, policy commitments, many diametrically opposite of what was promised
the wealthy donors, were also guaranteed with a non-verbal pledge of we won’t
let you down.
The first step was a de facto
party platform. The 110-page Biden-Sanders Manifesto which includes,
among other commitments, a massive job killing $2+ trillion climate agenda to
phase out fossil fuel usage within 15 years, the elimination of cash bail,
redirecting (i.e. cutting) funding for the police, dismantling all border
protections, legalizing virtually all illegal immigrants and massively raising
corporate and individual tax rates on the wealthy. This manifesto is a
socialist screed that would destroy the middle class and permanently neuter the
economy and nation.
An effusive Bernie
Sanders proclaimed to the world that Biden and the Democrats have embraced his
socialist agenda and that Biden would be the most progressive president since FDR.
Sanders exposed not only the behind the scenes reality of today’s Democrat
party but Biden’s figurehead role.
Further confirmation of
the radicalization of the Party came about unexpectedly as the militant Marxist
faction of the Sanders coalition forced the issue. Impatient and
unwilling to wait until after the 3rd of November, Antifa and Black Lives Matter
used the death of George Floyd as a pretext to take to the streets and begin
their long-hoped for revolution. They claimed that rioting, looting,
committing arson and attacking law enforcement was a necessity as this was a
systemically racist country. Yet, they openly demanded immediate changes
rooted in their radical Marxist ideology of class warfare not so-called
systemic racism. As two of their preferred chants and graffiti
slogans “eat the rich” and “abolish capitalism now” confirms.
Biden, the Democrat party
hierarchy as well as virtually all Democrat elected officials refused to
address the violence and those responsible. Thus, they tacitly approved
of the lawlessness and by doing so flashed a green light to continue the
riots. When forced to acknowledge the reality on the streets of the
nation’s cities, they instead blamed Trump, the police, white supremacists and
even the Russians. Due to their spinelessness, the armies of anarchy and
revolution Biden and the Democrats unleashed will never be defeated or
mollified by them.
Considering the vast
dichotomy in the litany of promises made and actions taken, it is inevitable
that either the moneyed elite or the mob of passionate true believers will be
betrayed. There is no middle ground. Who will prevail?
Will it be the elites
whose only weapon is money and fleeting political influence or the passionate
mob whose weapons are unconstrained violence and intimidation? Will it be
those who believe a revolution could never happen here or those who are
currently inciting revolution with the implicit blessing of a major political
party? Will it be those who believe that Biden and the Democrats, if
elected, will be able to forcefully deal with the insurgents or the insurgents
who now know that riots and extortion causes Democrat politicians to cower in
the corner?
Beginning with the French
Revolution and throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, history has recorded
that passionate mobs always prevail when dealing with a feckless ruling class
or party. And the first casualties have inevitably been the wealthy
elites.
I can envision sitting
with my old friend, Ully, and asking him if he thought the wealthy elites,
indiscriminately tossing money at the Democrats for the sole purpose of
defeating President Trump, understood the pitfalls involved. He would
lean back, slowly exhale a puff of smoke from his well-worn pipe and with
uncontrollable anger in his eyes would say: “Nope. Those damn fools ain’t
got a lick of common sense.”
Report:
Joe Biden Promises Wall Street Donors the Status Quo in Private Calls
OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images
8 Sep 2020343
3:50
Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden is promising Wall
Street donors the economic status quo that they became used to before President
Donald Trump’s administration, according to a report.
An investment banker on Wall Street told the Washington Post that in
private calls with financial executives two months ago, Biden’s campaign
assured them that talk of populist reforms on the campaign trail was nothing
more than talking points.
The Post reports:
When Joe
Biden released economic recommendations two months ago, they included a few
ideas that worried some powerful bankers: allowing banking at
the post office, for example, and having the Federal Reserve guarantee all
Americans a bank account. [Emphasis added]
But in
private calls with Wall Street leaders, the Biden campaign made it clear those
proposals would not be central to Biden’s agenda.
[Emphasis added]
“They basically said, ‘Listen, this is just an exercise to keep
the Warren people happy, and don’t read too much into it,’” said one investment
banker, referring to liberal supporters of
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). The banker, who spoke on the condition of
anonymity to describe private talks, said that message was conveyed on multiple
calls. [Emphasis added]
In a statement to the Post,
Biden’s campaign downplayed the influence of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) — left populists on trade and economic policy — on
the former vice president’s agenda.
“The Biden-Sanders task forces made recommendations to Vice
President Biden and to the [Democrat National Committee] platform drafting
committee,” Biden spokesperson TJ Ducklo said. “This anonymous source appears
to be confused and uninformed about this very basic distinction.”
The report comes as Biden told AFL-CIO members on Labor Day that
he will be the “strongest labor president” union workers “have ever had.”
“You can be sure you’ll be hearing that word, ‘union,’ plenty of
times when I’m in the White House,” Biden pitched. “The words of a president
matter. Union. We’re going to empower workers and empower unions.”
In the Democrat presidential primary, Biden told a group of rich
Manhattan donors at a private fundraiser that “nothing would change” for them
or their wealthy lifestyles if elected.
“I mean, we may not want to demonize anybody who has made
money,” Biden said at the
June 2019 fundraiser.
“The truth of the matter is, you all, you all know, you all know
in your gut what has to be done. We can disagree in the margins but the truth
of the matter is it’s all within our wheelhouse and nobody has to be punished,”
Biden said. “No one’s standard of living will change, nothing would
fundamentally change.”
Like failed Democrat
presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, Biden has enjoyed a cozy relationship
with Wall Street executives, along with his running mate Sen. Kamala Harris
(D-CA).
Most recently, Biden touted Wall Street’s
support for his plan to abolish America’s suburbs by seizing control of local
zoning laws to construct housing developments and multi-family buildings in
neighborhoods. Likewise, Wall Street is fully behind Biden’s plan
to hugely expand legal
immigration levels, beyond already historical highs at 1.2 million green cards
and 1.4 million visa workers a year.
The Biden-Harris ticket has elated Wall Street
so much that for the first time in a decade, more financial executives are
donating to the Democrat candidates than Republicans, the latest Center for
Responsive Politics analysis reveals.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on
Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
As Bloomberg
pledges $100 million, Wall Street boosts Biden campaign
15 September 2020
Billionaire Michael
Bloomberg has pledged to spend at least $100 million to support the campaign of
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden in Florida. This announcement
Sunday is only the largest pledge of support from the financial oligarchy for
the Democratic campaign.
Bloomberg aide Kevin Sheekey
said the pledge of virtually unlimited financial backing to Biden in Florida,
the most critical “battleground” state in the 2020 election, “will allow
campaign resources and other Democratic resources to be used in other states,
in particular the state of Pennsylvania.”
Florida has 29 electoral
votes, the most of any closely contested state, following California with 55,
overwhelmingly Democratic, and Texas with 38, leaning Republican. New York
state, also with 29 electoral votes, is heavily Democratic.
Only once in the last 60
years—Bill Clinton in 1992—has a candidate won the presidency while losing
Florida. The last Republican to lose Florida and still win the White House was
Calvin Coolidge in 1924, when the state was lightly populated swampland.
Early voting begins in
Florida September 24, and Bloomberg’s money will pay for massive campaign
advertising on behalf of Biden, in both English and Spanish. Campaign officials
said the funds would be devoted almost entirely to television and digital ads.
Even before the Bloomberg
commitment, the Biden campaign and supporting Democratic groups had outspent
Trump and the Republicans by $42 million to $32 million. The flood of cash from
the billionaire media mogul will give the Democrats a three- or four-to-one
advantage over the final seven weeks of the campaign.
The efficacy of Bloomberg’s
huge financial commitment is open to question. The media billionaire spent $1
billion (a mere one-fiftieth of his gargantuan personal fortune) on his own
pursuit of the Democratic presidential nomination. He launched his campaign at
a time when he believed Biden’s candidacy was near its demise, hoping that his
money might forestall the nomination of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.
The sudden revival of
Biden’s campaign with his victory in South Carolina in February and then in the
Super Tuesday primaries on March 3 led Bloomberg to abandon his own efforts and
endorse the former vice president, since their right-wing views on a range of
topics, and particularly on foreign policy, were virtually identical.
Since then, Bloomberg has transferred
$20 million from his abortive presidential campaign to the Democratic National
Committee, as well as pumping in another $120 million to local, state and
congressional campaigns, making him by far the largest single backer of the
Democratic Party.
Florida is only the most
glaring example of the general trend in the 2020 election, in which the
financial oligarchy and Wall Street have indicated a distinct preference for
Biden and backed it up with heavy financial commitments.
During August, the Biden
campaign broke all records for fundraising in a single month, raking in $365
million, nearly double the previous record of $203 million set by the campaign
of Barack Obama in September 2008, and more than Hillary Clinton and Trump
combined to raise, in August 2016, $233 million. The Trump campaign also broke
the Obama record, but its total of $210 million in August was far behind the
pace set by the Democrats.
Approximately $205 million
of the $365 million came through online donations, including 1.5 million new
donors. This is more an indication of the widespread hostility to Trump among
millions of working-class and middle-class people than any groundswell of
support for Biden, who personifies the corrupt US political establishment,
having spent 36 years in the Senate before his eight years as Obama’s vice
president.
That means that $160
million—a near-record amount by itself—was raised through large donations from
wealthy supporters of the Democratic Party. While Trump continues to rake in
the lion’s share of support from industries such as oil and gas, mining and
real estate, Biden has collected the bulk of financial backing from the banks,
hedge funds and insurance industry.
Under rules set by the
Federal Election Commission, a wealthy donor can now give as much as $830,600
to support a presidential candidate, routing much of the money through federal
and state party committees rather than the candidate’s own campaign.
The result of the disparity
in fundraising throughout the summer is that the Democratic presidential
campaign has now caught up with and even surpassed Trump’s war chest. The Trump
reelection campaign, despite raising an unprecedented $1.1 billion, has less
cash on hand for the fall than the Biden campaign. According to press accounts,
more than one-third of the money raised by the Trump campaign was used to pay
the expenses of fundraising itself.
There
were several reports last week that the Trump campaign was experiencing a “cash
crunch,” and was unable to sustain advertising in all 15 of the so-called
battleground states. Both the Washington
Post and Bloomberg News reported that Trump campaign manager
Bill Stepien has halted television advertising in Michigan and Pennsylvania at
least temporarily, and that Biden was outspending Trump in nearly every closely
contested state.
Stepien replaced Brad
Parscale as campaign manager in July, at least in part because of concerns that
Parscale had squandered Trump’s substantial initial fundraising advantage.
According to the media
tracking firm Advertising Analytics, the Biden campaign spent $17 million in
television and digital advertising in nine battleground states during the week
of September 3, compared to $4 million by the Trump campaign.
The Clinton campaign
outspent Trump by similar margins in 2016, but Trump campaign aides had boasted
they would not face such a deficit in 2020. Trump has hinted he would seek to
make up the difference from his personal fortune, but there has been no sign
yet of any direct outlay by the billionaire to back his own campaign.