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UNRELENTING ASSAULT ON THE AMERICAN WORKER FOR HIGHER CORPORATE PROFITS. OPEN BORDERS. BILLIONAIRES WHO LOOTED AND PLUNDERED LIKE A PACK OF RABID BANKSTERS, AND THE WHITE COLLAR CRIMINALS WHO RUN THE COUNTRY FROM THE WHITE HOUSE.
Baby boomers face financial distress and age discrimination
They were born and raised during the Golden Age of the U.S. economy, which lasted from 1948 through 1973, when a high school diploma could be a ticket to a well-paying job, a vacation home and a college degree for the kids. It was the postwar American dream, and millions considered it their birthright.
But now, after decades of economic upheaval, including three bear markets and two deep recessions in just the past 20 years, many baby boomers, the generation born between 1946 and 1964, are struggling. The eldest boomers have mostly retired. But millions of boomers in their 60s still want or need to work, and are having a hard time finding jobs.
COVID19 made the problem a lot worse. Nearly 900,000 Americans between the ages of 60 and 69 lost their jobs between December 2019 and December 2020, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a 5% decline in the number of employed people in that age group. Some 21.2 million Americans in their 60s are no longer in the labor force, the BLS reported.
Millions of Americans of all ages are suffering in COVID’s aftermath. Already 100,000 small businesses have closed. Thousands of cars wait hours at food banks. Nearly eight million Americans fell into poverty between June and November. Black and Latino people are bearing the brunt of it, in COVID deaths and economic damage, while unemployment has hit women harder than men.
But it also has made things worse for Americans in their 60s looking for one more act in their professional lives and whose prospects are as foggy as the legacy of their generation, which started out wanting to change the world and found, late in life, that the world had chastened them instead.
Behind those numbers are real human beings with stories to tell. MarketWatch found four of them, all people in their 60s with long records of professional success who were now trying to find purpose or, at least, some income to help pay the bills. None of them ran a hedge fund or cashed out in an IPO. None attended Ivy League colleges but went to state universities or technical schools and lived solid middle class lives as loyal, productive employees, raising families on high five- to low six-figure incomes.
Some had set aside a decent nest egg to tide them over while others had little cushion to face what may be involuntary retirement. According to a study commissioned by the National Endowment for Financial Education (NEFE), 96% of Americans face four or more “income shocks” during their lifetimes, which can reduce their retirement savings.
We contacted them after they responded on LinkedIn to an October column, “Half of Americans over 55 may retire poor.” They were in varied financial shape—one had just emerged from personal bankruptcy, another had a well-funded retirement plan–dealing with aging parents, illness, even the sudden death of a spouse. All had been laid off with no explanation, some before COVID 19 hit. Since then, they had sent out dozens of resumes yet got few job interviews and even fewer offers. All firmly believed they faced systemic age discrimination.
Curtis Berndt, 65, felt that people eliminated him because of his age, “You go in, they look at you and they say ‘too old’ and you’re done.”
“I just find it discouraging. People don’t want to give you a chance,” said 61-year-old Karen Mater.
What the News Means for You and Your Money
Here are their stories.
Curtis Berndt and Lu McCarty
Curtis Berndt and Lu McCarty spent their careers at the nexus of skilled craftsmanship and technical engineering.
Berndt began as a draftsman and then moved into product design, thanks to an associates’ degree in mechanical engineering from what is now Purdue University Fort Wayne. For 43 years, all in Indiana, he did advanced quality control, made mock-ups of new products and streamlined manufacturing processes to reduce defects and improve efficiency.
McCarty started out as a machinist working race cars and locomotives, then got a degree in mechanical engineering from a technical college in Sacramento, Calif. He worked as an engineer and product designer at companies like Hughes Space and Communications and Autodesk before eventually relocating to North Carolina and then to Connecticut.
For both men, the ax fell early in 2020.
Berndt had been working for a decade as a senior mechanical designer.” Everything was good and then all of a sudden — and I mean, really, all of a sudden–there was a huge financial issue and they decided they were going to have to get rid of people,” he said. “I had just turned 65 and three days later they didn’t need me anymore. It’s impossible to prove, but they assured me that my age had nothing to do with it.”
McCarty’s layoff was equally abrupt, just before his probation period ended and he would have been hired on permanently: “I got to my 59th day of probation and they told me I wasn’t a good fit for the company,” he said. “I had glowing reports from my colleagues, and then I was handed a ‘see you later’ notice.”
McCarty speculated his layoff came in the wake of a review of health care insurance premiums by a new insurance broker the company hired. “They’re trying to reduce costs,” he said.
It’s an all too familiar story with a just as familiar human toll. “I was treated so shoddily,” said Berndt, the shock and hurt still in his voice months later. “They had people there that were younger than me, that had less experience than me, but then I was probably getting paid more, too.” He also didn’t think COVID19 had much to do with it, since the pandemic still wasn’t on many people’s radar screens.
Berndt has applied for about 50 full-time job openings and gotten a handful of interviews.
“They say everything’s good until the face-to-face interview, and then it’s dead. From other people I’ve talked to in my age group, that’s pretty much the pattern,” he said.
“I’m searching all the time, every day,” said McCarty. He’s dropped his required salary to $45,000 a year, less than half of the $80,000-$120,000 he used to make. And he’s resigned to not getting a full-time position with benefits.
“I think you have to market yourself as a consultant contractor,” he said. “Otherwise, you’re not going to make any money at all.”
He’s worried his skills will atrophy if he doesn’t find work soon. “In today’s job market, if you lose your edge, you’re screwed,” he said.
McCarty is drawing unemployment benefits and qualifies for Medicare in September. His four children are grown and his domestic partner has a job. But he doesn’t have much saved in his bank account, or in his IRA, from which he has made a partial withdrawal.
“At least I have the motivation knowing that I don’t have the cash to fall back on,” he said, “So, when I’m 68 or 70, I don’t want to be sitting with a can and a sleeping bag on a corner somewhere, begging for food.”
Berndt’s children also are grown and his wife works full time. He qualifies for Medicare and plans to take Social Security when he reaches full retirement age, just past 66. But though he’s in decent financial shape, he said, “I think I still have a lot to contribute,” and is even considering a career change.
“I’ve decided I’m going to pursue something other than engineering,” he said in a message. “45 years is enough. I just haven’t figured out what that will be yet.”
Karen Mater
When Karen Mater was a young geologist working on oil wells in southern Indiana, a male rig worker said to her one day, “I don’t think women belong in oil fields. What do you think?”
“I said, ‘Well, I’m the wrong person to answer, because here I am.’” It was the kind of super polite comeback you’d expect from a mother of three from the Great Lakes State. Yet Mater’s quiet determination made her a pioneer in an overwhelmingly male-dominated field.
But the strain on her young family of being away for two or three weeks at a time caused her to change careers. Using the computer knowledge she’d acquired as a geologist, she took a job at nearby Central Michigan University, where she had earned her master’s degree, working in the department that oversaw charter schools, which were then launching in Michigan and across the country.
Twenty-three years later, in August, the university let her and others go. “They decided they had to really slim down and for whatever reason, they picked my job to eliminate,” she said.
Since then, she’s applied to “at least 45” jobs, but with no luck. “I think this online hiring has made it worse,” she said. “The human factor has totally gone out of it. You can’t fight the computer.”
Fortunately, Mater put aside 13% of her salary each year in her retirement plan and the university made generous matching contributions. Her three daughters are grown (one is in divinity school) and her biggest financial challenge is a jump in medical insurance premiums to over $600 a month. This year, she’s eligible to get Social Security survivors’ benefits.
That’s because in June 2019, Wayne, her husband of 32 years, was suddenly rushed to the emergency room, where doctors diagnosed him with kidney cancer. Later, specialists said they couldn’t give him chemotherapy, dialysis or even a biopsy. “I knew 14 hours before he died that he wasn’t going to survive,” she said. “His last week of life was his first week of retirement.” He was 67. Almost a year later to the day, her father died suddenly of a blood clot that traveled to his heart.
Such devastating losses make a job search look unimportant. “Emotionally right now I think I’m OK. But some days I get real down and out,” she said. She is working part time at her church for a lot less pay, but it keeps her busy and she finds comfort in her faith.
“I go to church and I say, well, it’s in God’s hands. Whatever He wants He’ll do and I’m good.”
William Budd
William Budd, 67, is one of the few people who served in both the U.S. Army and Air Force. He put in 3 ½ years in the Air Force right after high school, then did a two-year mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, followed by 17 years in the Army, mostly in Germany.
When he retired after 20 years of service, he pursued his dream of being an accountant, getting his bachelor’s and master’s degree in accounting from the University of North Texas when he already had three teenage daughters.
Nearly two decades of financial analysts’ positions followed at companies that ranged from defense contractors Raytheon and Honeywell to restaurant chain Panera Bread, largely in Arizona. But in early 2017 he found himself, at 64, out of a job. He’s been struggling to find full-time work ever since.
“I have had interviews on site, telephone, or internet with 176 different companies in the Phoenix metropolitan area,” he told me, but until recently got no full-time offers. He’s filled the gap with substitute teaching, volunteering at his church and a job as a courier that paid half as much as his previous jobs did.
He has struggled financially, too. He and his wife, who works in a bank, sold their home and now live with his mother and two of their four children. “We’re kind of like the Waltons,” he said.
Years of big expenses and salaries that couldn’t quite cover them took their toll. “Not having a paycheck for 2½ years, I actually had to do a chapter 7 bankruptcy. I probably mismanaged my money a bit,” he acknowledged. “Sometimes the more money you get, the more money you spend.”
He still has little personal or retirement savings, though he’s been getting a military pension since he left the service and started taking Social Security benefits at 64.
A few weeks after I interviewed him, Budd messaged me to tell me he got a full-time temporary job, which he hopes will become a permanent one, as an accounting specialist with the state of Arizona. At least there’s good news for somebody at a time where there hasn’t been much for anyone.
He started late in December and, he wrote, “I had to take a 60% cut in pay” from his last full-time job. “My passion for the work I do is sufficient payback,” he wrote. ”It certainly made my Christmas wish come true!”
Independence Day: Marvel Comics Makes Captain America Say American Dream ‘Is a Lie’
Just ahead of Independence Day, Marvel Comics featured a new Captain America issue in which the Captain slams the American dream as a false promise.
The first issue of the new series, “The United States of Captain America,” by writer Christopher Cantwell, was published on June 30, only four days before the country traditionally celebrates its day of independence from Great Britain.
As the issue begins, Steve Rogers — the original Cap — grouses about how America is built on “lies.”
“I’m loyal to nothing. Except the dream,” Rogers says early in the issue. “Here’s the thing about a dream, though. A dream isn’t real… I’m starting to think America actually has two dreams. And one lie. The first American dream is the one that isn’t real. It’s one some people expect to just be handed to them. And then they get angry when it disappears. When the truth is, it never really existed in the first place.”
He adds that the dream with the “white picket fences” is a lie that “doesn’t get along nicely with reality. Other cultures. Immigrants. The poor.”
Rogers goes on to take a swipe at those who favor tougher immigration laws, saying, “We’re at our best when we keep no one out. A good dream is shared. Shared radically. Shared with everyone. When something isn’t shared, it can become the American lie.”
The series features the Captain and his superhero pal Sam Wilson (who is portrayed by Anthony Mackie in the live-action Marvel movies) going on a quest to chase down the thief who stole the Captain’s original red, white, and blue shield. And during the crime-busting adventure, the pair crisscross America, meeting new Captain America figures from different regions of the country, including a gay Captain, a Native American Captain, and a black woman who claims her own version of the character, replete with her own shield.
Marvel has given over Cap to woke subversion for some time. Back in 2010, for instance, the Captain and Sam were seen saying Tea Party conservatives were a threat to America. The comics giant later apologized for the panels and said that the offensive parts would be removed in later compilations of the issue.
Flash forward to today, and only a few months ago, Captain America writer Ta-Nehisi Coates pushed out an issue that cast conservative philosopher and writer Jordan Peterson’s ideas as on par with the hateful ideas of the series’ Nazi villain, The Red Skull.
Tangentially, in the recent highly woke Disney/Marvel streaming TV series, The Falcon and Winter Soldier, as he takes on the mantle of Captain America, Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson delivers a monologue in which he portrays America as an oppressive place that needs change.
WHY IS IT ALL TECH BILLIONAIRES ARE LONG SUPPORTERS OF NAFTA JOE BIDEN? WATCH THEIR WEALTH DOUBLE DURING COVID AND THE HOMELESS, HOUSING AND JOBS CRISIS.
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.
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.
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.
How the Federal Reserve Is Increasing Wealth Inequality
The Fed’s low-interest-rate policies have stabilized the economy and turbocharged the stock market. But those who don’t own lots of stocks haven’t benefited anywhere near as much as those who do.
by Allan Sloan and Cezary PodkulApril 27, 6 a.m. EDT
Series:A Closer Look
Examining the News
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Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic struck, the Federal Reserve has gotten plenty of kudos for moves that have helped stabilize the economy, kept house prices from tanking and supported the stock market. But those successes have obscured another effect: the inadvertent impact the Fed’s ultra-low interest rates and bond-buying sprees are having on economic inequality.
Longstanding inequality in the U.S. has been exacerbated by the Fed’s role in touching off a multitrillion-dollar boom in stock markets — and stock ownership is heavily skewed toward the wealthiest Americans.
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In contrast, soaring stock prices don’t help people like Wina Tan. Tan, 59, is one of the millions of Americans nearing retirement age whose greatest source of wealth isn’t stocks or equity in a home. Rather, it’s the Social Security checks she expects to start getting once she retires.
Tan, precariously perched on the lowest rung of America’s working class, earns about $25,000 a year as a job coach for adults with special needs near Irvine, California. She’s a single mom and grandmother and can afford food, rent and healthcare only with the help of federal safety net programs.
Her savings account totals around $11,000, most of it from recent tax refunds and stimulus payments. She’s reluctant to risk that money in stocks, so the bull market will probably continue to charge past her. Meanwhile, thanks to the Fed’s near-zero interest rates, the best rate her credit union could offer was 0.5% for a long-term certificate of deposit. That would mean earning less than $60 a year on her savings while tying the money up for five years.
Tan’s situation is far from unique. Social Security is the top source of wealth for most lower-income households with workers nearing retirement, according to Teresa Ghilarducci, an economist at The New School in New York City who specializes in retirement. If the guaranteed income stream of Social Security is treated as an asset, she estimates it amounts to 58% of the net worth for near-retirees in the bottom half of the U.S. wealth distribution. Other retirement savings represent only about 11% of their net worth, and stocks are just 1%. (Home equity accounts for most of the remainder.)
Large swaths of Americans like Tan have essentially missed out on any direct wealth increase from the market’s near doubling since its bottom 13 months ago. Rather, the major beneficiaries have been the wealthiest 10% of Americans, who owned 89% of stocks and mutual fund shares held by U.S. households as of year-end, according to Fed statistics. More than half of that — 53% — is owned by the top 1%.
The Fed’s policies have helped generate jobs and reduce unemployment, which was their goal. In the process, however, the Fed has accelerated the decades-long increase in economic inequality by helping increase the wealth of people at the top far more than it has increased the wealth of working-class Americans.
“High-wealth households do much better in a low-rate environment than lower-wealth households do,” Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, said. “The low-interest environment increases inequality by increasing the wealth of people who are well off.” Zandi noted, however, that less well-off people don’t lose money because of the low rates; they simply don’t do as well as wealthier people.
Home prices have also benefited from the Fed’s easy money policies, and home ownership is much more evenly distributed than stock ownership is. The wealthiest 10% own only 45% of the real estate held by American households, according to the Fed. The remainder is owned largely by middle-class households, for whom home equity is often their biggest source of wealth.
But stock holdings are where the truly massive gains have come. It’s also where there was a big scare last year before the Fed and the CARES Act came to the rescue. COVID-19 sent unemployment soaring and stocks plummeting, as the market fell 35% from Feb. 19 to March 23, 2020.
The market’s rise since then makes the increase in homeowners’ equity look negligible. From last year’s market bottom through mid-April of this year, stocks gained about $22.4 trillion in value, as measured by the Wilshire 5000 Total Market Index.
To the Stockholders Go the Spoils
The value of U.S. stocks was growing faster than home equity before last year, but the gap exploded after actions by the Federal Reserve stabilized the markets.
Source: Wilshire 5000 Total Market Index (U.S. stock market value) and Federal Reserve (U.S. home equity) through 12/31/20.
In contrast, the nation’s total home equity — the value of houses less the debt on them — rose only about $1.3 trillion from the end of last year’s first quarter (eight days after the market low) through Dec. 31, according to the Fed. Even if you tweak the housing numbers to reflect this year’s gains, or measure the stock market’s gain from before the February drop, the disparity between stocks and home equity is huge.
“Inequality is a cumulative process,” said Karen Petrou, author of “The Engine of Inequality: The Fed and the Future of Wealth in America” and managing partner of the Washington-based consulting firm Federal Financial Analytics. “The richer you are, the richer you get, and the poorer you are, the poorer you get, unless something puts that engine in reverse,” she said. “That engine is driven not by fate or by untouchable phenomena such as demographics but most importantly by policy decisions.”
Under President Joe Biden, the federal government is trying to both create jobs and funnel lots of money to people like Tan with the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan stimulus package. Indeed, Tan is grateful for the $4,200 in stimulus funds she recently received. “This country has really, really blessed me a lot,” said Tan, a naturalized citizen who emigrated from Indonesia in 1984.
The Biden administration is also pushing for a $2.3 trillion infrastructure bill. But even without a penny yet having been spent on that, the federal government is running up record budget deficits, with more to come.
A considerable part of current and future deficits will be indirectly financed by the Fed, which has been increasing its holdings of Treasury IOUs and mortgage-backed securities by at least $120 billion a month, and has directed its trading desk to increase purchases “as needed” to maintain smooth functioning in the financial markets.
During Donald Trump’s four years as president, the Fed added $2.25 trillion to its holdings of Treasury IOUs, which helped cover the $7.8 trillion of debt the Treasury issued to finance budget deficits during the Trump years. It’s likely the central bank will be the biggest source of finance for Biden’s deficits, just as it was for Trump’s.
Why does that matter? Because when the Fed buys securities, it does so with money that it creates out of thin air. Pumping more money into the financial system increases the money supply, and some of that cash inevitably ends up making its way into the stock market, boosting prices.
Biden is making tax increases a big part of his infrastructure pitch, which in theory would make that legislation less reliant on the Fed. But it doesn’t mean taxes will go up anywhere near as much as he’s proposing. Or that taxes and spending will rise in lockstep. After all, spending is a lot more popular than raising taxes.
Now, let’s step back a bit and see how we got to this point.
During the 2008-09 financial crisis, the Fed initiated “quantitative easing,” a policy under which the central bank buys massive amounts of Treasury IOUs and other securities to inject money into the markets and stimulate the economy. Then-Fed Chair Ben Bernanke championed that approach, which complemented aggressive moves by the Treasury and helped keep giant banks and the world financial system from cratering. (Lots of people still lost their homes to foreclosure, another example of how helping the financial system might not help average people. But that story has already been told.)
Quantitative easing helps stimulate the economy by driving down interest rates, which hurts savers. A telling indicator involves money market mutual funds, where savers have traditionally tucked away spare cash in hopes of earning more interest than bank deposits pay. Money market funds used to produce much more income than stock market index funds. But that ratio began to slip in 2008 and has kept on slipping. At the end of 2007, Vanguard’s federal money market fund was yielding 4.46% and dividends on the Admiral shares of its Total Stock Market index fund yielded 1.78%. (A dividend yield is a fund’s annual dividend divided by its share price.) At the end of 2008, the yield was 1.74% for the money market fund and 2.82% for the stock index fund. The current numbers: 0.01% and 1.28%.
Such low rates have forced average savers to either get by with less interest income or put more money into stocks than they would have otherwise done. That added demand has been one of the factors that has helped push stock prices upward.
Economists are beginning to view the interplay of the Fed’s actions and inequality in a new light. Central bankers used to think that “we didn’t have to worry about inequality when we did monetary policy,” Olivier Blanchard, former director of research for the International Monetary Fund, said during a December virtual forum sponsored by the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Blanchard said he has since come to believe that monetary policy does impact economic inequality because a change in interest rates has “major, major distribution effects between borrowers and lenders, between asset holders and not.”
Spokespeople for the Fed, the Treasury and the White House declined to discuss the impact of soaring stock prices spurred by ultra-low interest rates on economic inequality. So we looked at what some key people involved in the 2008-09 and 2020 Fed bailouts have said publicly.
Fed chair Jerome Powell hasn’t directly addressed the central bank’s role in exacerbating inequality, though he has expressed sympathy for people left behind during the economic comeback. (“There’s a lot of suffering out there still,” he told “60 Minutes” in an interview that aired on April 11. “And I think it’s important that, just as a country, we stay and help those people.”) In a congressional hearing in February, Powell testified, “We can’t affect wealth inequality. … We can affect indirectly income inequality by doing what we can to support job creation at the lower end of the market.” When pressed to discuss problems of wealth inequality by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), he told her that “those are really fiscal policy issues.”
Bernanke, currently a fellow at the Brookings Institution, acknowledged in a 2017 Brookings paper that “all else equal, higher stock prices mean greater inequality of wealth.” But he maintained that “whatever effects monetary policy has on inequality are likely to be transient, in contrast to the secular forces of technology and globalization that have contributed to the multi-decade rise in inequality in the United States and some other advanced economies.” Like Powell, Bernanke argued that inequality is the purview of fiscal policymakers (Congress and the White House) rather than the Fed.
Janet Yellen, who was the Fed’s vice chair under Bernanke and is now Treasury secretary, asked in a 2014 speech whether income inequality is “compatible with values rooted in our nation’s history.” But she largely defended ultra-low rates during a Q&A at a 2013 conference of business journalists. Older savers were “suffering from low returns on their CDs,” she said, but “they have children and they have grandchildren” who will benefit from the stronger economy.
However, the economic effects of quantitative easing eventually fade, according to researchers at the Bank for International Settlements, a Switzerland-based institution that acts as a central bank for central banks. The BIS concluded in a 2017 study that quantitative easing had more success boosting stock prices than boosting economic growth. Over time, the economic impact trended toward zero while stocks saw a “significant and persistent positive impact,” the researchers found.
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Jason Furman, a former chair of President Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers and currently an economics professor at Harvard, summed up the inequality tradeoff this way in an interview: “I don’t want to have a lower stock market and higher unemployment.” In other words, increasing wealth for the wealthy is an inevitable side effect of keeping interest rates low to support the economy and create jobs.
The latest round of stimulus checks will help close that gap a little by putting money in the pockets of low-income earners like Tan. But near-zero interest rates will make it harder for them to save the money for the future, as Tan hopes to do. She would like to set aside $1,000 to $2,000 in savings accounts for her 16-year-old son and three-year-old grandson in addition to saving for her retirement and a rainy-day fund.
And as the Fed pumps more money into the financial system by buying Treasury securities and indirectly supporting federal stimulus programs, the run-up in stock markets is likely to continue — and leave people like Tan even further behind than they already were.
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.
BILLIONAIRES FOR OPEN BORDERS AND ENDLESS HORDES OF INVADING 'CHEAP' LABOR
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.
