AMERICA IS A NATION FOR THE RICH AND 'CHEAP' ILLEGAL LABOR THAT THE RICH DEMAND
25 Facts About The Explosive Growth Of Poverty In America That Will Blow Your Mind
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANm7FAKuCw0
The rest of the world sees America as the wealthiest nation on the entire planet. But when we take a closer look at the hardships our population is facing, we can rapidly realize that there's a tremendous amount of financial suffering in the United States, and that's getting dramatically worse with each passing year. Today, more money goes towards the pockets of the rich than ever before. Over the past few decades, we've been witnessing the greatest event of wealth transfer in the history of our nation without even realizing it. While billionaire CEOs like Mark Zuckenberg make over a million times more than the average American worker every year, many families out there, whose parents work themselves to the bone every single day, will still struggle to find what to eat and where to sleep with their children tonight. Extreme poverty continues to grow all across the country. According to an analysis released by the University of Chicago, at least 336,000 households with children live on less than two dollars a day. That’s a group known as the ultra-poor. Amid skyrocketing housing and rent prices, at least 600,000 Americans remain in a group known as the “unhoused”. “Right now, we are still trending in the wrong direction,” explained Anthony Love, interim executive director at the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness. “When the public is told that one particular policy is going to end homelessness, what they’re expecting is that they’re going to see fewer homeless people around,” added Stephen Eide, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. What they haven’t considered yet is that housing has to come first, Eide stressed. Meanwhile, the gap between the rich and the rest of the population is worsening. On average, the top 1% of earners make 20 times more than the bottom 90% every year. The wealth disparity grows the higher up the ladder we climb. Even the mid-level one-percenters can’t reach the gigantic amounts earned by the ultra-rich. These disparities, make us question whether the US is indeed a rich nation or a nation for the rich. The answer is up to interpretation, but you can have a clearer picture about this issue at the end of this video. Today, we gathered some staggering stats that expose that poverty in the United States is wildly out of control. Here are 25 Facts About The Explosive Growth Of Poverty In America That Will Blow Your Mind. For more info, find us on: https://www.epiceconomist.com/
It’s Happening: Global Elites Plotting to Destroy Americans’ Personal Wealth
The following content is sponsored by Brownstone Research.
As the world’s economy emerges from the crisis caused by the pandemic, global elites have pushed for a “Great Reset.” Brownstone Research founder Jeff Brown spoke with Breitbart News Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow about the implications of this globalist vision for ordinary investors and how Brownstone Research’s personalized “Great Reset Protection Plan” provides all the tools investors need to protect themselves against these destructive market forces.
Though the pandemic has pushed talk of the Great Reset into broader political discourse, Brown explained that the idea is much older. The phrase originated with Klaus Schwab, the founder and chairman of the World Economic Forum (WEF), in 2014. But, as Brown noted, “Philosophically, this has been going on for thousands of years.”
“The powerful and the elites of the world have always tried to impose their will and signal their virtue to society obviously at their own benefit, not the benefit for the general population,” Brown said.
However, he noted that the pandemic has only accelerated this globalist push, as governments and corporations have exercised unprecedented power over individuals.
Brown framed the Great Reset as part of the trend of “woke capitalism,” which he described as “the corporate version of virtue signaling.”
He explained that we can see the Great Reset in action in the corporate world’s embrace of ESG investing, which stands for “Environmental, Social, and Governance.”
“ESG is one the largest themes in the corporate world right now, as companies try to rebrand themselves,” he said. “And it’s all about money and perception in the sense that even large institutional funds on Wall Street are trying to reposition themselves as being good, raising trillions of dollars of funds only to be invested in ESG approved companies. And, of course, companies are excited to rebrand themselves so that they have access to that kind of capital and those types of investors.”
“From my perspective, a very perverse loop is happening right now that is actually feeding into what those behind the Great Reset are trying to accomplish,” Brown added.
“What is their goal? What is the objective for some of these global elites?” Marlow asked.
“Obviously it’s almost always about money and power,” Brown said. “By imposing controls, they can impose and control the flow of capital into places they see fit, not where we, as taxpayers or citizens, feel is appropriate. If you control the flows of money, obviously you can benefit. They have the added benefit in their eyes of being perceived to be doing good for the world and the perception that they know better about what’s good for us and that they’re steering things in the right direction.”
“But this will absolutely exacerbate the types of inequalities and problems that we see around the world today, rather than solving them,” Brown cautioned. “And the Great Reset, of course, always leaves out one key point: How is the world going to pay for all of these grand visions?”
“Do you know the answer?” Marlow asked.
“They’re going to print a lot more money,” Brown answered. “And what that means is the value of our dollars or our euros or our yen will be quickly devalued and depreciated over shorter periods of time.”
“I know that if folks go over to JeffBrownReset.com, you give them a comprehensive plan on how to deal with this in their personal life,” Marlow said. “What can we be doing to guard against this on an individual basis?”
“My overarching goal is to help normal investors protect against these types of things,” Brown explained. “We try to stack the deck in favor of normal people and give them the same advantages, if not more, than the insiders on Wall Street. And any time we’re living in these types of highly inflationary, very radical progressive monetary policy periods, things like fixed assets are important.”
“If we outpace inflation, then our real return on investments will be greater than a government’s ability to devalue the currency,” he added. “So, what I really try to convey to my subscribers are investing in ways that can do exactly that — that can grow their assets at rates that are much faster than inflation.”
Sign up for Jeff Brown’s “Great Reset Protection Plan” HERE. Learn more at JeffBrownReset.com.
“Workers aren’t getting bailed out like the billionaires”: Detroit workers livid over surging gas prices
orkers filling up their tanks at gas stations across the United States are getting angrier over the sharp rise in fuel prices, which has cut deeply into their paychecks. Many US workers in the US regularly travel 50 miles or more one way to get to work. Gas prices jumped 18.3 percent last month and are up 48 percent since March 2021.
According to the US Labor Department, inflation hit 8.5 percent in March, the highest since 1981. On Thursday, the Department reported that wholesale prices rose 11.2 percent in March, largely due to the surge in energy prices.
Workers’ wages have largely been stagnant for years, with annual raises limited to about two percent. Despite the complaints from big business about rapidly rising wages, real average hourly earnings fell 2.7 percent between March 2021 and March 2022. This has left workers scrambling to reduce spending, work even longer hours and take on more credit card debt.
At a Speedway gas station in the working class suburb of Warren, Michigan, just north of Detroit, workers spoke to World Socialist Web Site reporters as they were filling up their tanks. The instant and universal response to the question of what they thought about rising prices was: “It sucks.”
The reporters distributed copies of the WSWS Autoworker Newsletter and discussed the statement “A working class program to fight inflation” with workers. The statement calls for an immediate 40 percent increase in wages to offset declining real income over the last five years, a cost-of-living escalator to index wages to rising expenses, and measures to protect retiree benefits and halt price-gouging by the oil companies.
The gas station is just south of the Stellantis (formerly Fiat Chrysler) Warren Truck Assembly Plant where thousands of workers can hardly afford to travel to and from work. One worker said, “I’ve stopped filling my tank all the way up. I just put enough in to go from Point A to Point B. In the grocery stores people are just buying the necessities because food prices are up too.”
He said workers had risked their lives throughout the pandemic making profits for Stellantis and other corporations, and that several people had died from COVID-19 at his plant. Now they were trying to force older workers to take early retirement packages so they could be replaced with so-called “Supplemental” workers who are essentially low-paid at-will employees. “After making all those profits for them, they are trying to get rid of the older workers, the ‘dinosaurs,’ so they can bring in younger workers and treat them like crap.”
“This is the second time I’m filling up my gas tank this week,” Dane, a tile and stone worker, told the WSWS. “We’ll be lucky if it doesn’t go any higher because I can’t see prices coming down too soon. I’m from Mt. Clemens, I work in Bloomfield, and I pick up my kids from schools in Warren.” This is a round trip of at least 60 miles, he said. “It’s costing me $90 a week to pay for gas.
“Biden is saying it’s Putin’s fault, but this happened way before Ukraine. The president’s approval rating is in the toilet. It’s outrageous how much profits the oil companies are making. It’s the working class that is being hit the hardest. Prices are up, but our wages aren’t. These food and gas prices need to come back down.”
Pointing to the inequality in society, he said, “I build a lot of bathrooms in wealthy neighborhoods. I would never in my life be able to afford to have one of my own. I pay attention to what is happening in the world. People are revolting because of food and energy prices. I only wonder how long it’s going to take before that happens here.”
A young worker who stopped at the station said: “There should be a price ceiling and nothing above it should be allowed. Nowadays, young workers need more than one way to make money. They can’t rely on the basic jobs that the older generation could keep for 30 or 40 years. There used to be good-paying jobs, but those are few and far apart for my generation now.”
“It’s crazy; I’m paying just too much for gas,” Chris, a pipefitter, said. “It was already going up way before the war and Biden is just using that as an excuse. I brought my old car out because I get 25 miles per gallon with it, instead of 14 or 15 with my pickup truck. It’s making noise, but I’m keeping it on the road because I would have paid $90 to fill up my truck. Workers don’t get bailouts and tax write-offs, like Bezos and the other billionaires who don’t pay any taxes.”
“Wages don’t keep up with prices,” a factory worker who stopped at the gas station with her children said. “You have to work lots of overtime to meet expenses and that takes away time with your family. Now the plants are down because of the microchip shortage, so there are no extra funds.”
Bailey, who purchases secondhand and used items for resale, said he had made two trips to the gas station today alone for work, paying $40 each time. “Every time something goes on, they blame it on COVID or this or that. This is BS. The oil companies are making billions of dollars, they’re not hurting.
“Now they’re saying they don’t have enough workers. Well, I mean they’re still making millions of dollars, so if you offer guys a hundred bucks an hour, I bet you’ll get workers. At gas stations like this, instead of working eight hours they’re working them eighteen hours, and they’re only giving them the same amount of pay.
“My friend’s dad works in Lima, Ohio at the tank plant. They’re building tanks left and right now. He hasn’t had a day off in like three years, outside of vacation time.” Expressing concern over the danger of a wider war with Russia, Bailey said, “We should stay out of Ukraine. It doesn’t have anything to do with us.”
“Food and gas prices are going up but we’re bringing home the same amount of money,” a young worker said. “Our wages should go up by the same amount as food and gas.”
A retired Chrysler worker said, “I get $4,000 a month for my pension, but everything is going up and up. Soon enough, I’ll have to get a job and go back to work. We have to fight this. It’s pitiful. The cost of living is going to be as high as California soon.”
Another Warren Truck worker added: “The gas prices are affecting me a lot. I drive 80 miles a day and it just cost me $73 to fill up my tank. It’s like we’re giving them a bigger piece of our paychecks just to come to work. People are starting to revolt all over the world because of food and energy prices and it’s time we do that here. But we need an army of workers to stand up.”
A 29-year veteran autoworker at the truck assembly plant added, “I travel 62 miles one-way to work and the gas prices are killing me. It’s costing me $40 a day to drive, when it used to be $18. I’m driving a truck and I can’t get a new car because there aren’t any. This is killing everybody—and I think that’s what they want to do.”
Asked what he thought about Biden’s effort to blame Putin for the price hikes, he said, “Russia has legitimate concerns. I don’t believe NATO left Putin any choice. I don’t believe anything that comes from the mainstream media.
“I’ve been working seven days a week for a whole year. My body is worn out and they just scheduled me for mandatory overtime on Easter Sunday. The UAW lets this go on. The union is nothing but a big bureaucracy. All they care about is the money they are paid for signing away our livelihoods. We need to get rid of it and build something new to replace it.”
Pointing to the real causes of runaway inflation, he added, “Both parties have been printing so much money to keep the stock market going and now the dollar’s not worth the paper they print it on. It makes no difference if you have the Republicans or Democrats in power. Both parties are making the working class pay.”
The decades-long suppression of wages, backed by the UAW and other unions, has been central to US government policy, particularly since the 2008 crash, to handing over trillions to prop up the stock markets and carry out a massive transfer of wealth from the working class to the super-rich.
But the labor shortage produced by the pandemic has led to a modest uptick in wages, still far outpaced by inflation, but leading to proposals by the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates, even if it threatens to drive the economy into recession. This policy, whose purpose is to terrorize workers with the prospect of mass unemployment and beat back their demands for higher wages, has widespread support in ruling circles.
New York Times columnist and liberal economist Paul Krugman spelled this out earlier this week, writing: “Rising wages are a good thing, but right now they’re rising at an unsustainable pace: This excess wage growth probably won’t recede until the demand for workers falls back into line with the available supply, which probably—I hate to say this—means that we need to see unemployment tick up at least a bit.”
Just like workers in Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Greece, Peru and many other countries, American workers are being driven into struggle by the ruling class attack on their living standards. Earlier this week, Newsweek warned in an article, titled, “America is heading for class warfare,” that “Nothing has revealed the class divide in the U.S. quite like runaway inflation and skyrocketing gas prices.” It continued, “As millions struggle to fill their tanks and pay their rent, sales of business jets to the rising ranks of billionaires have soared to new heights.”
IRS Data: Democrat Billionaire Mike Bloomberg Pays Less than Half the Tax Rate Paid by Average American
Billionaire Michael Bloomberg, the failed Democrat presidential primary candidate and former New York City mayor, is paying less than half the federal income tax rate the average American taxpayer pays, newly published Internal Revenue Service (IRS) data reveals.
The revelation is part of a broad investigation by ProPublica that gives a glimpse into the tax loopholes that the richest 400 Americans utilize every year to dodge billions in federal income taxes that most Americans are required to pay.
“To make it into the top 400, each person on this list had to make an average of at least $110 million each year,” the investigation states. “A typical American making $40,000 would have to work for 2,750 years to make what the lowest-earning person in this group made in one.”
Bloomberg, ProPublica reports, “achieved one of the lowest tax rates in the top 400” richest Americans from 2013 to 2018 “partly by taking annual deductions of more than $1 billion, mostly through charitable contributions.”
During that time frame, Bloomberg paid an average federal income tax rate of just four percent — less than half the rate that the average American taxpayer, at 13.3 percent, pays every year. In fact, Bloomberg’s average rate is just 0.5 percent more than what the bottom 50 percent of income earners pay on average.
Bloomberg’s massive tax breaks are thanks to provisions signed into law by former Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump.
Bush’s provision came in 2003 when his administration expanded the low tax rate for long-term capital gains to also cover stock dividends. This, alone, ProPublica reports, helped save the richest 400 Americans, including billionaires Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, and Sheldon Adelson, an average of $1.9 billion annually.
The Trump provision, slipped into the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act at the behest of Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), allows the owners of so-called “pass-through” companies to deduct up to 20 percent of their profits. As a result, the owner keeps an extra seven cents on every dollar of profits.
“Tax records show that in 2018, Bloomberg, whom Forbes ranks as the 20th wealthiest person in the world, got the largest known deduction from the new provision, slashing his tax bill by nearly $68 million,” ProPublica reports.
Bloomberg is not the only billionaire to get a tax boost from the provision. Treasury Department economists have found that 60 percent of the provision’s tax savings have gone to the top one percent of American income earners.
“That’s because even though there are many small pass-through businesses, most of the pass-through profits in the country flow to the wealthy owners of a limited group of large companies,” ProPublica reports.
As Breitbart News has chronicled for years, research has consistently shown that the wealthiest Americans today pay an overall lower tax rate than all other Americans. Meanwhile, American middle class wealth has dropped to a historic low.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
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