OBVIOUSLY WE ALL KNOW THAT JOE BIDEN IS NOTHING BUT A SOCIOPATH LYING LAWYER. WHILE HE IS 'FOLKSING' US TO DEATH WITH HIS POPULIST PERFORMANCES, HIS PAYMASTERS ON WALL STREET ARE LOOTING US AS ALWAYS. NOTHING IN THIS COUNTRY EVERY CHANGES. THEY JUST CHANGE THEIR COSTUMES.
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.
A 2018 report, based on a survey also conducted by the Federal Reserve, found that four out of ten adults said they could not cope with an unexpected expense of just $400—the equivalent of a set of tires blown out on a freeway or a flu test not covered by insurance—without taking out a loan, overdrawing on their bank account, borrowing from a friend or family member, or simply not paying the bill. Among this group are tens of millions of people from all races.
Global automakers report huge sales
increases in spite of pandemic and chip
shortage, due to ramped-up exploitation
of workforce
Auto companies reported substantial sales increases for the second quarter of 2021 compared to the same time last year, in spite of an ongoing worldwide microchip shortage which has idled much of the world’s auto production. Some corporations have reported sales numbers that reveal a closing of the gap between post- and pre-pandemic production. However, Wards Intelligence, an analytics firm which tracks auto sales, shows US light vehicle sales were down last month, with 1.3 million cars sold compared to 1.6 million in May of this year.
The basis of the rebound in the auto industry has been levels of exploitation of autoworkers which are practically unprecedented. At major auto plants throughout the country, with the full support and collaboration of the United Auto Workers union, forced overtime has become routine as companies scramble to make up for profits lost in the early stages of the pandemic. Meanwhile, an unknown but no doubt massive number of workers have gotten sick and died of COVID-19 inside the plants.
The human toll of this breakneck pace on autoworkers was expressed in a series of tragic deaths in Detroit last week. Two autoworkers died of drug overdoses at Stellantis’ Warren Truck Assembly Plant and Warren Stamping Plant, and a third worker died outside of the company’s Jefferson North Assembly Plant when she was struck by a train in the middle of the night leaving work.
The UAW announced this week that mask requirements would end later this month for vaccinated workers in US plants, as part of its continuing collaboration with the auto companies to tear up what remains of coronavirus-related restrictions, justified by false claims by the Biden administration that the pandemic, which is still surging throughout the world, is “over.”
Toyota reported a sales increase of nearly 73 percent this past quarter compared to 2020. EVs, including hybrids, made up nearly a quarter of total sales, the company said. Toyota replaced General Motors as the top selling automaker in the US for the second quarter of 2021. Unlike the US-based corporations, Toyota had a supply of the microchips on hand when the shortage first began to affect the auto industry, but as the situation has dragged out it has also had to cut back production at its plants due to the lack of components.
Cox Automotive earlier predicted that Ford’s sales would be up by 20.5 percent compared to last year, but still down 19.5 percent from the second quarter of 2019. However, Ford missed most predicted targets for the second quarter of 2021, increasing sales by only 9.6 percent. Its June 2021 sales fell by 26.9 percent compared to May 2021, with sales of its best-selling F-series pickups declining by nearly 30 percent.
Ford’s sales and production continue to be impacted by the chip shortage. The company reported earlier this year that it expected to lose half of its projected second quarter production as a result of the lack of parts. Recently the company announced a slew of production cuts that will impact workers across its factories in the US, Canada and Mexico over the next month. Of these, Ford Chicago Assembly Plant will be impacted the most, with all production shut down for four weeks beginning July 5. Workers will have to apply for dwindling unemployment benefits through the state yet again, many who have already been temporarily laid off this year due to the ongoing chip shortages.
Stellantis, formed out of a merger in January of PSA Group and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, reported a 32 percent increase in second quarter sales compared to what the two parent corporations reported last year. The increase was driven in large part by a 47 percent increase in Dodge Ram sales.
The most popular Ram pickup truck, the Ram 1500, is built at its Sterling Heights Assembly Plant (SHAP) in Michigan, where autoworkers have been on forced overtime for the entire year. Stellantis executives have clearly made the decision to keep the plant running at full blast no matter the cost.
This breakneck pace continued throughout massive outbreaks of coronavirus inside the plant. At one point in the spring, more than 10 percent of the plant’s nearly 8,000 workers were out on quarantine. The UAW, meanwhile, has run damage control for the company by covering up the true extent of the spread.
SHAP is also one of the few major assembly plants never to have shut down or cut production due to the microchip shortage. Stellantis even shifted chips and manpower from idled plants such as Warren Truck, which is now reopened, to SHAP.
General Motors (GM) reported sales increases over 40 percent for this quarter compared to the second quarter of 2020, down only 5.8 percent compared to 2019. Sales of the Chevrolet Bolt EV, built in Orion Township, MI, went up 31 percent, and sales of its Buick SUV, built in Delta Township, MI, went up 31 percent. Its Chevrolet Silverado truck, built at its plant in Silao, Mexico, also picked up large numbers of sales. Similar to SHAP, workers at GM’s Silao plant have faced grueling conditions, including forced 12-hour shifts, and COVID-19 has infected and killed an unknown numbers of workers at the plant.
Other major automotive corporations reported high sales increases compared to the previous quarter. German auto giant Volkswagen reported sales increased of 72 percent in the second quarter of 2021 compared to 2020 and sold 5,756 EVs last quarter, up from 474 in the first quarter. Its stock price rose 1.3 percent after sales results were released Thursday. Honda recorded an overall sales increase of about 64 percent compared to the same quarter last year. The company also reported a record number of EV hybrid sales.
All-electric carmaker Tesla, which reopened its plant in Fremont, California, in defiance of stay-at-home orders in the state of California last year, recorded record numbers of deliveries in the second quarter of 2021. According to Refinitiv, the company delivered 201,250 vehicles in total during the past quarter, above its expected target of 200,258 vehicles. Tesla stock prices rose as high as 3.3 percent on Friday morning and it has reportedly increased its vehicle prices in response to the chip shortage.
Although it sells far fewer cars in comparison to its competitors, the massive wealth of the company and its billionaire CEO Elon Musk rests in large part on speculative profits and is increasingly dependent on volatile cryptocurrency investments like its $1.5 billion bitcoin investment revealed in February. The company’s productive capacity is vulnerable to the supply of microchips, and there is nervousness on Wall Street that its streak of prosperity could end if it relies heavily on cryptocurrency to shore up its financial profits.
While the auto companies no doubt had much to celebrate this week, there can be no doubt that in corporate boardrooms and in UAW offices throughout the country there is intense anxiety that rebounding profits could be jeopardized by an eruption of struggles by autoworkers. Last year, workers rejected a UAW-corporate deal to keep plants running during the initial surge in the pandemic by carrying out wildcat strikes, temporarily foiling this corporatist conspiracy and forcing a two-month shutdown. Given the pressure-cooker atmosphere inside the plants, there is every reason for them to fear a renewed upsurge.
This is a central reason why the UAW has imposed an information blackout of the strike by Volvo Trucks workers in Virginia upon the rest of its membership. Indeed, the first reference to the strike on the UAW’s website was published on Thursday, when the union announced a tentative agreement which it hopes will end the strike.
The UAW fears most of all that other autoworkers might follow the lead of the Volvo Workers Rank-and-File Committee, which was founded to oppose the UAW’s isolation and betrayal of their struggle, by rebelling and forming committees of their own.
Report: Driver Trapped in Tesla After It Bursts into Flames, Electronic Doors Fail
A Tesla Model S Plaid reportedly erupted into flames outside of Philadelphia, trapping the owner inside after electronically activated doors refused to open, the car owner’s attorneys claim. The driver escaped from the Tesla, but the fire took more than two hours for the fire department to extinguish.
The Washington Post reports that a Tesla Model S Plaid erupted into flames as the owner was driving down the road, the owner’s attorneys claim that the man was briefly trapped inside the burning vehicle after the car’s electronically activated doors refused to open.
The incident took place outside Philadelphia just days after the man received the vehicle that Tesla has hailed as the world’s quickest production car. Tesla said that it delivered the first 25 vehicles in June after CEO Elon Musk held a glamorous media event in Fremont, California.
Authorities from the Gladwyne Fire Department initially stated that they were investigating a fire involving a Tesla Model S but by Thursday, the news released had been taken down. The chief fire officer of the Lower Merion Township Fire Department, Charles McGarvey, confirmed to the Post that there was a fire Tuesday involving a Tesla Model S Plaid and it took over two hours to extinguish.
“With the Teslas, you’ve got to just put copious amounts of water on it,” he said. “After that, you’ve got to sit 45 minutes, an hour, [and] once it stops smoking you can release it to second responders. We had it towed to a location that was secured.”
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) stated that it is beginning to gather information on the incident. NHTSA spokesperson Lucia Sanchez stated: “NHTSA is aware of the Tesla vehicle fire in Gladwyne, Pennsylvania; and the agency is in touch with relevant agencies and the manufacturer to gather information about the incident. If data or investigations show a defect or an inherent risk to safety exists, NHTSA will take action as appropriate to protect the public.”
Mark Geragos, of the law firm Geragos and Geragos, is representing the owner and has called for Tesla to take the vehicles off the road. “This is a harrowing and frightening situation and an obvious major problem,” Geragos said in a statement. “Our preliminary investigation is ongoing, but we call on Tesla to sideline these cars until a full investigation can occur.”
This is far from the first Tesla that has caught fire, Breitbart News reported in April that two men died near Houston after a Tesla vehicle which was believed to be operating without anyone in the driver’s seat crashed into a tree. Sgt. Cinthya Umanzor of the Harris County Constable Precinct 4 said: “There was no one in the driver’s seat.”
The 2019 Tesla Model S vehicle was traveling a high rate of speed when it failed to correctly navigate a curve and left the roadway, crashing into a tree and exploding into flames, according to local television station KHOU-TV.
The fire was extinguished and authorities located two occupants in the vehicle. One was in the first passenger seat while the other was in the back seat of the Tesla, the report stated citing Harris County Precinct 4 Constable Mark Herman.
In December of 2020, a Tesla Model S owner named Usmaan Ahmad heard metallic bangs coming from his vehicle as he pulled off a suburban Dallas thoroughfare last month. Ahmad pulled over and moments later his five-year-old vehicle began shooting flames.
Ahmad, 41, stated that the sound he heard was like “if you were to drop an axle of a normal car,” but the vehicle was fully intact. As Ahmad stood on the side of the road watching his vehicle, the car burst into flames concentrated around the front passenger-side wheel. “This was shooting out like a flamethrower,” said Ahmad. Experts believe that the issue is related to the battery which raises questions about the safety and durability of electric vehicles as they age.
Read more at the Washington Post here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address lucasnolan@protonmail.com
The "racial wealth gap" narrative obscures reality of class divide in the US
Over the last several years, news of a “racial wealth gap” has flooded America’s airwaves and print media. According to those pushing the concept, white Americans have a great deal more in all respects than black Americans, and that, therefore, race-based remedies tailored to upper income blacks—such as reparations, set-asides, and affirmative action—must be deployed.
These racialist politics share one common feature: They leave untouched the actual source of social inequality for workers of all races—capitalism.
The concept of the racial wealth gap, and the attendant idea of “white privilege,” have been promoted by academics for some time, but it is only recently that they have appeared broadly in the news media. An analysis of newspaper articles on the archive Newspapers.com shows that the terms “racial wealth gap,” “racial wealth divide,” “racial inequality,” and “white privilege” appeared 4,689 times in the 1990s and then more than tripled in the 2010s, reaching 15,758 mentions. Over the 2020s—that is, just the last year-and-a-half—there have already been 10,658 references to these terms. By contrast, during the 1960s, the height of the civil rights era, they only appeared 4,560 times.
The deluge coincides with a massive growth in overall wealth and income inequality in the US and globally. The wealthiest 10 percent of US households owns 34.5 times more than the bottom 50 percent, and over the course of just 2020 they increased their fortune by more than $18.8 trillion—about $1.53 million per household, with far higher going to the super-rich. As the richest of all races have seen their fortunes climb into the stratosphere and their counterparts in the bottom 90 percent have seen theirs stagnate and crumble, an obsessive focus on race has emerged. It is being pumped into the veins of American society. The purpose is to transform a looming class war into a race war.
The argument that the racial wealth gap is the most salient feature of American society today is, to be blunt, a fraud. It is based on the tendentious selection and presentation of data. There is nothing about it that is remotely progressive or left-wing, much less Marxist, as those on the political right claim.
Before delving into the data, it is essential to underscore one point. Race is neither biologically real nor socially immutable. But when it comes to the creation of categories of people for the purposes of social analysis, it is assumed that it is. The data spin around the idea that there is some sort of clear distinction as to what constitutes a “white household” and what constitutes a “black household,” even though people have always formed, and increasingly continue to form, family bonds across these lines.
Each “racial group” in fact subsumes within it populations with extremely different histories. So-called “white households” may include the children of Appalachian coal miners, Soviet-Jewish immigrants from the Caucasus, Persians from modern-day Iran, Spaniards from the Mediterranean, Arabs from Morocco, the great-great-great grandchildren of American slaves, dispossessed Palestinians, and so on. So-called “black households” might include some of the same groups, as well as Caribbean islanders, individuals from the Indian subcontinent, French immigrants of west African descent, etc.
But census forms, surveys, and medical histories require Americans to adopt some sort of racial identity. The resulting data is then utilized to argue that race is the overwhelming determinant of social reality—regardless of whether it is personally meaningful or significant in explaining any given individual’s place in the social structure. All other factors—such as language, culture, citizenship status, time of arrival in the United States, role in the labor force, and, above all, class—are regarded as small change in the face of the concept of race.
The data
When investigating the racial wealth gap, mean and median wealth for different racial groups is commonly cited to demonstrate the existence of universal “white privilege.” Analysts and commentators draw on different data sources, generally surveys, the census, and tax records, of which the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) is frequently cited.
In 2020, the Federal Reserve published the results of its 2019 Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF). The data were picked up by the media, with news articles on the findings appearing in many press outlets. According to the SCF:
In 2019, the typical white family had $188,200 in wealth and the typical Black family had $24,100… [T]he typical White family has $50,600 in equities they could tap into in an emergency compared to just $14,400 for the typical Black family and $14,900 for the typical Hispanic family… The typical White families’ home value is $230,000 and the typical other families’ home value is $310,000. The typical Black and Hispanic families’ home values are lower, at $150,000 and $200,000, respectively…. While the typical Black or Hispanic family has $2,000 or less in liquid savings, the typical White family has more than four times that amount [emphases added].
In the Federal Reserve’s ten pages of analysis of the SCF, “typical” appears 25 times. The use of the word gives the impression that the great majority of whites possess eight times more, own homes worth $80,000 more, and have quadruple the financial reserves of their black counterparts. This implies that white families are overwhelmingly comfortable and secure, and that they have tidy bundles in the bank.
But this is an intentionally distorted portrait of social reality. In order to arrive at it, analysts have to do several things. First, they attach to mathematical measures a social meaning that they lack. Second, they remain silent about the scale of inequality that exists within racial groups, and within society as a whole, both of which dwarf by many times the racial wealth gap. Third, they focus on strata of whites and blacks and make no mention of the absolute numbers of people that these percentages encompass. Because the white population is five to six times the size of the black population, even if lower percentages of white households are poor, in aggregate tens of millions of whites—actually more—share the same level of social deprivation as the most oppressed minorities.
Returning to the question of the median wealth of white versus black households, it is essential to realize that the description of this value as reflective of the wealth of the “typical” or “average” white family in the US is deceptive. A median is a halfway point in a data set. When dealing with wealth and income, in which there is a massive chasm between the best and least-well off, a median is often a better measure of the overall situation than a mean (commonly referred to as an “average”), which is pulled upward by the super wealthy and extremely high-income earners. However, under situations in which there are very high levels of inequality, a median also hides more than it reveals.
Using the median, SCF data found that half of all white families own more, and half own less, than $188,200, compared to $24,100 for the fiftieth percentile division among black families. But what is lost by focusing on the median for the white population as a whole is the fact that among those who own less than the median, tens of millions of families own vastly less. Massive numbers of white households are not experiencing anything like this allegedly “typical” reality.
According to SCF data, the bottom 20 percent of white households—18.6 million (using an average household size of 2.53, about 47 million people)—own virtually nothing or are so indebted that the total value of their wealth is negative. Their reality is shared by the 30 percent of black households—4.5 million (approximately 11 million people)—and 20 percent of Latino households—3.4 million (an estimated 8.6 million people). Using different data, economist Gabriel Zucman calculated in 2014 that as much as 50 percent of the total US population—nearly 160 million people at the time—has zero or negative wealth.
In other words, for the tens of millions of households that have zero or negative wealth, the “racial wealth gap” is a meaningless concept. It does not exist. Regardless of skin color, no one has anything. A more “equitable” distribution of wealth across the lower strata of racial groups would not pay a single bill for a poor black family, for the simple reason that you cannot divide something that does not exist.
The United States is a sea of multi-racial destitution. According to the analysis of SCF data by Matt Bruenig with the People’s Policy Project, the poorest 10 percent of the US population is about 54 percent white, 27 percent black, 12 percent Hispanic, and 3 percent some other group. The next most impoverished layer is 42 percent white, 32 percent black, 20 percent Hispanic, and 5 percent other. And the third one up from the bottom is 53 percent white, 20 percent black, 20 percent Hispanic and 7 percent other. When one gets to the top three deciles of wealth holders, the racial composition begins to strongly favor whites. The largest imbalance exists in the highest tier. The racial wealth gap is primarily meaningful for elite African Americans, who are frustrated at being underrepresented where the vast majority of net worth is concentrated.
Looking at the middle of the wealth pyramid, white households whose net worth puts them in the fifth decile (the 40th to 50th percentiles) control just 1.5 percent of the total $93.82 trillion possessed by white households, according to the Federal Reserve. Imagining this tiny share could be spread evenly among all families in that decile group, it would amount to about $151,200 per household. This is $30,000 shy of the median wealth of white households as a whole, which is $188,200, and about 16 percent of the mean wealth of all white households, which stands at around $950,000.
The fifth decile of black households possess only 0.9 percent of the approximately $4.46 trillion held by all households in this racial categorization. If we divided this share up evenly among fifth-decile black households, we find an average wealth for black families of about $26,760. White households in the parallel bracket, in other words, own about 5.5 times more than black households because African Americans are overrepresented among the poor. According to the racial wealth gap proponents, having $151,200—which as Federal Reserve data show will be largely comprised of a partially paid off mortgage and a small retirement fund—is an incredible level of “white privilege.”
However, when we consider the privilege that accrues to the richest households of all races, the real stratification in society becomes evident. Today, the top 10 percent of white households control 74.4 percent of all the wealth for that group. The situation for rich blacks is similar. They have 70.6 percent of everything held by their racial category as a whole. Imagining that this is divided equally among the white households in the top 10 percent, each would have a net worth of $7.5 million. The equivalent number for black households is “only” $2.1 million.
Inequality is greater among black households than among white households. The average wealth of top white households and the fifth decile of white households—technically families that fall somewhere near the middle of the wealth pyramid—differs by a factor of nearly 50. Comparing black households at the top to blacks in the fifth decile yields a difference of 78.5 times.
Looking at the data cross-racially, we also see big differences between the wealthiest black families and middle class white families, with the former being 14 times richer than the latter. This gives the lie to the claim that “all whites” enjoy “skin privilege.”
Since the first quarter of 2020, total white household wealth has grown by $21.3 trillion and total black household wealth has increased by $1.12 trillion. Again, the racial wealth gap proponents point to the fact that white household wealth grew by far more than that of black households. But as the increase for both groups was driven by an extraordinary run-up in stocks, of which the bottom 50 percent of the population owns just 0.7 percent compared to 87.2 percent for the top 10 percent, virtually all of this wealth has been captured by the rich of all races. Of the entirety of the wealth generated over the course of 2020, the bottom half of the population shared in just 2.8 percent.
In addition to net worth, it is often emphasized that “typical” white families have significantly more back-up reserves than blacks and Hispanics. Again, an image of relative security is imposed on white families. But this betrays, on the part of the government analysts, journalists, and academics with six-figure salaries, a complete lack of understanding of how what most people have really stacks up against the economic burdens they face.
The SCF data show that the average black, Latino, and white families have somewhere between $14,000 and $50,000 of equities (including stocks, mutual funds, and retirement accounts) that theoretically could be transformed into cash in the event of an emergency. In addition, the “typical” white family has $8,000 in liquid savings compared to the “typical” black family with just $2,000. That is, white households, it would appear, have about four times as much.
But these numbers simply do not apply to the bottom 20 to 30 percent of any racial group, who own nothing. And four times a pittance is still a pittance. While some white households are in a better position to hold out against financial blows for a longer period of time, in the event of a job loss, unexpected medical bill, major home repair, or similar disaster, tens of thousands of dollars can swiftly evaporate.
A 2018 report, based on a survey also conducted by the Federal Reserve, found that four out of ten adults said they could not cope with an unexpected expense of just $400—the equivalent of a set of tires blown out on a freeway or a flu test not covered by insurance—without taking out a loan, overdrawing on their bank account, borrowing from a friend or family member, or simply not paying the bill. Among this group are tens of millions of people from all races.
This data took on a human face during the COVID-19 crisis in the form of miles-long lines of cars that appeared at food banks. Those queues were made up of families of all backgrounds who, it seems, somehow did not get the memo about their net worth, equity, and liquid savings calculated by the “racial wealth gap” specialists.
It must be stressed that the way the Federal Reserve measures net worth minimizes the wealth of the very richest, who are very adept at hiding their fortunes, while overstating the wealth in the working class. In its calculation of household net worth, the Federal Reserve includes unfunded pensions, for instance, of which 99 percent are promised to government employees. When the 2019 SCF data were released, analysts highlighted the fact that more white households tend to have pensions and retirement accounts than black households. However, as Gabriel Zucman and Emanuel Saez noted in September 2020, unfunded pensions are not backed by anything. They actually have no real value.
Conclusion
The overrepresentation of black families in the poorest strata of society is the outcome of history—namely, specific forms of capitalist exploitation for which racism provided ideological justification, including slavery and sharecropping. Historically, African Americans have suffered from horrendous forms of prejudice and discrimination, with many pushed into the most oppressed layers of the population as a consequence. But the origins of racism do not lie in the “DNA” of white people, as is claimed by the N ew Y ork Times 1619 Project, but in capitalism. The capitalist class foments divisions among workers in order to exercise its rule. All those who insist that the racial wealth gap, not the class gap, is most important division in society do the same.
The dire conditions facing masses of black workers today arise out of a sweeping assault on living standards that started in the 1960s and 1970s and was overseen by both Democrats and Republicans, black and white. The advances of the civil rights movement and mass entry of African Americans into industrial work in northern cities during the post-World War II era had just begun to lift sections of that population out of the extreme poverty and oppression of the Jim Crow era. For a short time, some black workers began to share in the rising living standards of the American working class, experiencing modest gains that were won through hard-fought class battles. But the weakening global position of American capitalism led the US ruling class to determine that such concessions were intolerable. While the South, where many blacks lived, remained poor, deindustrialization hammered northern city after city, such as Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and Cleveland, which were home to millions of blacks. African American workers shared the fate of their class as a whole: job losses, wage cuts, collapsing property values, the destruction of whole communities.
But a narrow layer, including a black elite, shared in the spoils of the wreckage. In the 1970s, as the assault on the working class intensified, affirmative action, “black capitalism,” and “black power” in the form of black mayors, police chiefs, and school boards were part of the thin gruel dished out to the residents of America’s hollowed-out cities. They did nothing for the overwhelming majority of the African American population, but a great deal for a small few. The obsession with the racial wealth gap is intended to obscure these class realities, hide this history, and drown class anger in a toxic swamp of racial hatred.
Social scientists expend incredible effort to suppress the reality of social class. Unlike race, class is not a scientifically false category. It arises objectively from control over the means of production. There are those who own great wealth and those who labor to produce it. But in contemporary American sociology, class is, at best, of tertiary interest, important to the allegedly more decisive categories of “race, gender, and sexuality” only as it “intersects” with them. More often it is treated as essentially meaningless.
Trotsky once explained that behind every social categorization is a political prognosis. Those that insist that universal “white privilege” is the cornerstone of modern American reality demand more racial “equity.” In doing so, they reveal more than they intend to. In the original meaning of the term, to have “equity” means to own stocks. Indeed, this is what they are after. It is to be achieved by impoverishing a section of the white population, ensuring that poor blacks stay poor, and growing the share of total wealth that goes to the African American population at the top. Class inequality is not only to remain untouched, it is to be defended, deepened, and expanded.
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.
Revealed: Elon Musk, Tesla Go Full Shill for Communists on Chinese Social Media Site Weibo
Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk and his electric car company Tesla have shared full-blown praise of the Chinese Communist Party on China’s equivalent to Twitter, Breitbart News can reveal.
The verified accounts for Elon Musk and top Chinese Tesla representatives on the Chinese micro-blogging site Weibo have all been adorned with personalised backgrounds celebrating the one hundred year anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP):
Screenshot of Elon Musk’s verified account on the Chinese micro-blogging site Weibo, July 3rd
The background celebrating the centenary of the CCP does not appear to have been a mandatory feature by the Chinese site, as other users, including one of Tesla’s main accounts, do not feature the communist banner art.
Therefore it is likely that someone who manages Elon Musk and other Tesla social media accounts in China made the decision to honour the murderous regime.
The social media campaign in China comes as the billionaire tech magnate drew criticism this week for celebrating the CCP on Western social media.
On the anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party, Musk posted a response to the CCP’s newswire agency Xinhua on Twitter — a service which is banned in China — saying: “The economic prosperity that China has achieved is truly amazing, especially in infrastructure! I encourage people to visit and see for themselves.”
The Xinhua post Musk responded to was quoting Chinese dictator Xi Jinping, who claimed: “China has realised the first centenary goal — building a moderately prosperous society in all respects. This means that we have brought about a historic resolution to the problem of absolute poverty in China, and we are now marching in confident strides toward the second centenary goal of building China into a great modern socialist country in all respects.”
The false claim that China has eliminated poverty comes from the regime artificially lowering the standard of extreme poverty from the World Bank’s threshold of $1.90 per day to the new communist standard of $1.52 per day.
The Tesla founder’s verified account on Weibo posted the same message for Chinese users to read.
One of the chief propaganda outlets for the Chinese Communist Party, The Global Times, hailed the pronouncement from Musk and others as confirmation of the party’s supposed success, writing: “Overseas companies congratulated China on its remarkable achievements made under the leadership of the Communist Party of China.”
The CCP mouthpiece went on to quote a post from Volkswagen on its Weibo account which said “look on the past hard times, and look to this age” — a quote from Chinese communist dictator Mao Zedong, who was responsible for the deaths of up to 60 million people during the disastrous ‘Great Leap Forward’ campaign, alone.
While Musk has previously expressed opposition to Marxism, he has increasingly sought to increase Tesla’s position in Communist China, establishing a factory in the economic hub of Shanghai in 2019.
Ahead of the launch of the factory, Musk, in conversation with Alibaba founder Jack Ma, openly declared that “China is the future”.
It has been far from smooth sailing for Musk’s expansion into China, however, with Chinese state regulators announcing a recall of some 300,000 Tesla cars in the country, just days before the billionaire entrepreneur lavished praise on the CCP.
Some have speculated that the Chinese are trying to edge Tesla out of the market in favour of home-grown alternatives made with allegedly stolen tech from the American electric vehicle company.
Breitbart News has reached out to Tesla and Tesla China for comment.
Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here @KurtZindulka
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