As the world was buffeted by a coronavirus tsunami leaving forced lockdowns, supply-chain problems, economic upheaval, and poverty in its wake, globalist financial elites “have had a terrific pandemic” according to a report released Monday.
The world’s 10 richest men have more than doubled their fortunes to $1.9 trillion, at a rate of $1.6 billion a day, over the past 12 months, proving elites have largely been spared the misery and financial ruin inflicted on so many by endless enforced lockdowns.
A confederation of charities that focus on alleviating global poverty, Oxfam said members of the globalist financial elites saw their wealth rose more during the pandemic more than it did the previous 14 years, when the world economy was suffering the worst recession since the Wall Street Crash of 1929.
These are some of the main points from Oxfam’s latest report , Inequality Kills, which has been released as global business leaders meet virtually this week for the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland.
“We have a situation where 10 men hold more wealth than that of two-thirds of humanity,” Lyn Morgain, chief executive of Oxfam Australia, told Australia’s ABC news outlet.
“Not only that, but that bottom 40 percent are hanging on by a thread.”
The report highlights what the charity says are “unprecedented” levels of global inequality as coronavirus sharpens the divide between “us and them,” the “haves and have nots.”
Jeff Bezos speaks about his flight on Blue Origin’s New Shepard into space during a press conference on July 20, 2021 in Van Horn, Texas. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Meanwhile the likes of Tesla co-founder Elon Musk, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, enjoyed the greatest year-on-year growth since records began, the report outlined.
At a time when a group of these men were using their riches to rocket into outer space, the charity said, the World Bank had projected that more than 160 million people had been pushed into poverty.
In all, 20 new “pandemic billionaires” have also been created in Asia thanks to the international response to coronavirus, according to the charity.
Forbes listed the world’s 10 richest men as: Tesla and SpaceX chief Elon Musk, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, former Microsoft CEOs Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, former Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, U.S. investor Warren Buffet and the head of the French luxury group LVMH, Bernard Arnault.
The Oxfam report follows a December 2021 study by the group which found that the share of global wealth of the world’s richest people soared at a record pace during the pandemic.
FAKEBOOK and GOOBLE ASS AULT FREE SPEECH TO BUILD THE GLOBALISTS’ BILLIONAIRES’ DICTATORSHIP FOR THE RICH
HILLARY CLINTON: THE LIFE OF A VERY DISTURBED AND VERY DISHONEST SOCIOPATH
http://hillaryclinton-whitecollarcriminal.blogspot.com/2016/07/the-squalid-lives-of-hillary-clinton.html
In the book, Byrne describes her as “distant, cold, dishonest, and a habitual liar.” When asked about this, he told American Thinker , “Americans need to know that Mrs. Clinton is not a leader. She displays a holier-than-thou attitude, ‘do as I say, not as I do.’ When I heard her say Bill Clinton would work with her on the economy, my first thoughts, ‘what steps will she take to protect young women working at the White House from him?’ Her pattern is reflection, deception, and lies.”
AND THE BRIBES POURED IN.........
In June 2010, several of his companies received deals or concessions from the Colombian government following back-to-back meetings that Bill Clinton and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had with the President of Colombia. Giustra has given tens of millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation since 2005.
HILLARY CLINTON, MEXICO and GOOGLE: THE CONSPIRACY TO FLOOD AMERICA WITH “cheap” LABOR.
http://hillaryclinton-whitecollarcriminal.blogspot.com/2018/09/google-rigged-it-so-illegals-would-vote.html
“Overall, the Washington-imposed economic policy of economic growth via immigration shifts wealth from young people towards older people by flooding the market with cheap white-collar and blue-collar foreign labor .” NEIL MUNRO
“If you see a Latino Googler in the office (California/New York), please give them a smile,” Murillo wrote. “They are probably hurting right now. It’s tough to handle now that we know not all of us were against this, so we may be even more divided than ever. At least in CA/NY though, you can rest assured that the Latinos of these blue states need your thoughts and prayers, at least for them and their families.”
Charlie Daniels: We Need a Wall – But That’s Just the Beginning “I believe that if Hillary had been elected she would have found a way to give amnesty and eventually citizenship to all the millions of Hispanics who are now here illegally and would have, in theory, have opened the border so that more and more could cross and be eligible to vote, until an undefeatable voting block would have been created, putting a more and more progressive electorate into power.” CHARLIE DANIELS Even though it has gone virtually unreported by corporate media, Breitbart News has extensively documented the Clintons’ longstanding support for “open borders.” Interestingly, as the Los Angeles Times observed in 2007, the Clinton’s praise for globalization and open borders frequently comes when they are speaking before a wealthy foreign audiences and donors.
LA RAZA SUPREMACIST HILLARY CLINTON’S TRILLION DOLLAR WELFARE HANDOUT TO NARCOMEX! Clinton amnesty plan would cost taxpayers $1.2 trillion
By Rick Moran
Hillary Clinton's plan to bring 11 million illegal aliens "out of the shadows" would cost American households an immediate tax increase of $1.2 trillion, or $15,000 per household, according to a study by the National Academy of Sciences.
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2016/11/selling-out-legals-to-la-raza-hillarys.html
WHY DO YOU THINK THE RICH AND
CROOKED WANT HILLARY CLINTON
IN THE WHITE HOUSE?
Their net worth today is now in excess of $150 million, accumulated not by traditional means of work and investment, but rather by pay-for-play influence peddling through speeches and Clinton Foundation fundraising -- with the tacit understanding that the Clintons would be in a position to return favors to donors after Hillary won the 2016 presidential election.
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2016/11/billionaires-and-banksters-for-hillary.html
FOLLOWING THE CRIMES OF BILL AND HILLARY CLINTON BECOMES AMERICA’S ROAD TO REVOLUTION
Transcripts released by WikiLeaks of Clinton speeches to Wall Street bankers, for which she received six-figure paychecks, show her praising the recommendations of the 2010 Simpson- Bowles deficit-reduction commission, which called for sweeping cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid; the elimination of 200,000 federal jobs; a tax on employees’
THE DEMISE AND ULTIMATE DESTRUCTION of HILLARY CLINTON
"Hillary Clinton is a known liar, a criminal of monstrous proportions; others have gone to prison for crimes she has committed over and over: lying to Congress, lying to the FBI, violating national security laws by which she was bound as Secretary of State, etc. It's a long list."
Clinton, the candidate favored by most of Wall Street and the corporate elite and large sections of the Republican Party establishment, is seeking to assemble something akin, within the framework of the US political setup, to a grand coalition between the Democratic Party and the Republican leadership.
Transcripts released by WikiLeaks of Clinton speeches to Wall Street bankers, for which she received six-figure paychecks, show her praising the recommendations of the 2010 Simpson-Bowles deficit-reduction commission, which called for sweeping cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid; the elimination of 200,000 federal jobs; a tax on employees’ health benefits; and huge cuts in income taxes for the wealthy and corporate taxes.
Analysis: Joe Biden’s ‘Build Back Better’ Would Make the Rich Even Richer Sean Gallup/Chip Somodevilla/Jeff Gentner/Drew Angerer/Getty Images 2:51
President Joe Biden’s “Build Back Better Act” is set to give a tax cut to about 67 percent of the nation’s richest Americans — those earning more than $885,000 every year.
A new analysis from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget reveals that the filibuster-proof reconciliation package will give a tax cut to two-thirds of the top one percent of earners even as the top one percent now hold more wealth than the entire American middle class.
“This is true despite the fact that Build Back Better would raise taxes substantially for the extremely rich (mainly those making over $10 million per year),” the analysis states.
In effect, those in the top one percent would receive an average tax cut of more than $16,000 in 2022 under Biden’s plan. The tax cuts for the wealthy would be a result of the plan’s increasing the State and Local Tax (SALT) deduction cap.
As Breitbart News has reported, the plan amounts to a $625 billion tax cut for the wealthiest of Americans living primarily in blue states.
(Chart via Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget)
“In other words, the largest tax cuts in dollars in Build Back Better would go to households in the top five percent and especially the top one percent,” the analysis continues. “Many make millions of dollars of annual income and tens of millions of dollars in assets.”President Joe Biden’s “Build Back Better Act” is set to give a tax cut to about 67 percent of the nation’s richest Americans — those earning more than $885,000 every year.
A new analysis from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget reveals that the filibuster-proof reconciliation package will give a tax cut to two-thirds of the top one percent of earners even as the top one percent now hold more wealth than the entire American middle class.
“This is true despite the fact that Build Back Better would raise taxes substantially for the extremely rich (mainly those making over $10 million per year),” the analysis states.
In effect, those in the top one percent would receive an average tax cut of more than $16,000 in 2022 under Biden’s plan. The tax cuts for the wealthy would be a result of the plan’s increasing the State and Local Tax (SALT) deduction cap.
As Breitbart News has reported, the plan amounts to a $625 billion tax cut for the wealthiest of Americans living primarily in blue states.
“In other words, the largest tax cuts in dollars in Build Back Better would go to households in the top five percent and especially the top one percent,” the analysis continues. “Many make millions of dollars of annual income and tens of millions of dollars in assets.”
At the same time, Biden’s plan would squeeze an extra $200 billion out of American taxpayers by mostly targeting working and middle class earners with more Internal Revenue Services (IRS) audits.
The plan ensures nearly 600,000 more working and middle class Americans earning $75,000 or less a year would be audited by the IRS. Of those new IRS audits, more than 313,000 would target the poorest of Americans who earn $25,000 or less a year.
Biden’s “Build Back Better Act” has already passed the House, thanks entirely to Democrat support, and now awaits scrutiny in the United States Senate.
In 2017, former President Trump had the SALT deduction capped at $10,000. Since then, Democrats have sought to deliver their wealthy, blue state donors with a massive tax cut by eliminating the cap altogether or greatly increasing it.
Biden, for instance, had sought to include tax cuts for his billionaire donors in a Chinese coronavirus relief package earlier this year. The plan was ultimately cut from the package. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), in May 2020, also tried to include the plan in a coronavirus relief package.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here .
Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), in May 2020, also tried to include the plan in a coronavirus relief package.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here .
House Democrats pass stripped-down social welfare bill with massive tax cut for the rich
House speaker Nancy Pelosi
On Friday morning, the House of Representatives passed its version of President Joe Biden’s $1.75 trillion “Build Back Better” social welfare and climate bill. As expected, the measure was approved on a party-line vote, with 220 Democrats voting “Yes” and all 212 Republicans voting “No.” One Democrat, Jared Golden of Maine, a conservative former Marine who served tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, broke ranks and voted in opposition to the bill.
Golden had announced that he would oppose the bill because it included a massive tax break for the wealthy. The outcome of months of internal Democratic Party wrangling was the decision of the Biden White House and the party leadership to strip the bill of all major tax increases opposed by big business and slash the top line figure for social programs and climate protection in half, from $3.25 trillion to $1.75 trillion over 10 years.
That, however, did not satisfy the Wall Street and corporate interests that dictate government policy and control both major parties. Earlier this month, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi incorporated into the bill a measure demanded by wealthy donors in high-tax states such as New York, New Jersey and California. It was the lifting of a $10,000 cap on deductions on federal income taxes to compensate for state and local taxes. The cap was imposed as part of the Trump tax bill passed in December of 2017, which slashed taxes for corporations and the wealthy.
Until then, there was no limit on the amount of federal tax deductions for state and local taxes that wealthy people in generally pro-Democratic high-tax states could claim by itemizing their federal tax returns. In imposing the limit, Trump and the Republicans were targeting states that historically vote “blue” in federal elections.
This infuriated the Democrats’ wealthy backers, who demanded that the Biden budget bill raise the limit on so-called SALT (state and local tax) deductions. The Democrats acceded by adding to the bill a provision raising the limit to $80,000 for each of the next nine years.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that this tax windfall for the wealthy will cost the federal government $285 billion over the 10-year span covered by the bill, making it the second most costly item in the legislation. It is topped only by a combined $390 billion for universal pre-school for three- and four-year-old children and limited subsidies for child care.
It is considerably higher than the allocation for clean energy and climate resilience ($220 billion), four weeks of paid family and medical leave ($195 billion), clean energy and electricity tax credits ($190 billion), affordable housing ($170 billion), Medicaid home- and community-based services ($150 billion), a one-year extension of the expanded child tax credit ($130 billion), and tax credits for health insurance premiums under Obamacare ($125 billion).
It would help pay for programs that were severely cut or dropped outright from the bill under pressure from big business and its most open mouthpieces in the Democratic Party, such as senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. These include free community college (eliminated); the ability of Medicare to negotiate drug prices with the pharmaceutical industry, thereby lowering their costs (reduced to a shell program affecting only a handful of drugs and not even starting until 2024); and Medicare coverage for dental, hearing and vision (reduced to limited subsidies for hearing aids).
According to an analysis by the Tax Policy Center, the SALT tax provision will overwhelmingly benefit the top 10 percent of income earners, with virtually nothing going to the remaining 90 percent, i.e., the working class and lower-middle class. The measure will particularly benefit the top one percent, those who make over $867,000 a year. They will see a tax cut in the tens of thousands of dollars.
“Anything you do to eliminate the SALT cap is going to be regressive, because that tax is overwhelmingly paid by very high-income people,” said Howard Gleckman of the Tax Policy Center. “Anything you do to lower that tax doesn’t matter for most people.”
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) reported that a family of four in Washington D.C. making $1 million per year would receive 10 times as much tax relief next year from expanding the state and local tax deductions as a middle-class family would receive from an expansion of the child tax credit. The CRFB said that two-thirds of households making more than $1 million a year would get a tax cut under the legislation because of the increase in the state and local property tax deduction.
Pointing to the brazen hypocrisy of Biden and the Democratic Party, Marx Goldwein, senior policy director at the CRFB, said, “We’re debating about whether to give lower- and middle-class families a thousand dollars more a year through the child tax credit, while giving upper-class families $10,000 or more through SALT. That’s counter to everything the Democrats have been saying Build Back Better is about and everything they said about the Trump tax cuts.”
According to a report from the Tax Foundation, raising the SALT cap would more than offset other tax increases for the wealthy in 2022 included in the House bill. These include a 15 percent minimum corporate tax, a 1 percent tax on stock buybacks, increased taxes on US companies’ foreign profits, and a surtax of 5 percent on those with adjusted gross income over $10 million and 8 percent on those making more than $25 million.
In a column in the Financial Times on Thursday, Edward Luce alluded to the Democrats’ obsession with identity politics and linked it to the Build Back Better bill:
The result is a bill that caters best to the most powerful slice of Americans—the very wealthy. They can sleep easy now that the carried interest loophole, which allows private equity partners to be taxed at lower than ordinary income rates—as Warren Buffett pointed out, they pay a lower tax rate than their secretaries—is probably safe. As it stands, the bill will also give wealthy Americans a bigger tax cut than they got from Trump’s big 2017 tax bill.
Even this miserable travesty of social reform will be further gutted if not blocked outright in the Senate, where passage will require the support of all 50 Democrats. Neither Manchin nor Sinema has signed on to the bill, the former having declared his opposition to even a completely inadequate a four-week paid leave provision, while calling for means testing and work requirements for other social benefits.
The so-called “progressives”—Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren in the Senate, the more than 100-strong House Progressive Caucus—capitulated to the demand of Biden and the most right-wing factions in the Democratic caucuses to pass the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill. This bill was backed by virtually every corporate lobby group, without having secured the agreement of Manchin and Sinema to support Senate passage of the broader “Build Back Better” social spending bill, against which the corporations have waged a massive lobbying campaign.
Sanders, for his part, has denounced the inclusion of the SALT provision in the House bill but is supporting a modified version in the Senate bill, according to which eligibility for expanded tax deductions would be limited to people making less than $400,000 a year. On the other hand, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, widely known as the “senator from Wall Street,” is supporting an even bigger deduction than that provided by the House.
BEZOSHEAD REDEFINES THE TERM 'CAPITALIST PIG'
Amazon, this year alone, petitioned for nearly 3,000 employment-based green cards for their foreign visa workers and foreign nationals seeking to take high-paying white collar jobs. Microsoft and Google, likewise, petitioned for more than 3,300 employment-based green cards.
WHAT IF THIS PIG HANDED OVER TO THE TORNADO VICTIMS THE SAME
AMOUNT OF LOOT HE SQUANDERED TAKING
A TEN MINUTE JOY RIDE INTO SPACE???
During the 2020 Democratic primaries, every candidate pledged to repeal the Trump tax cut for the rich. Biden has repeatedly called his domestic agenda a “blue collar” program. While declaring ad nauseam that “I am a capitalist,” who has nothing against people becoming billionaires, he has called on Wall Street to “pay their fair share.”
As a senator, Biden vigorously voted for several similar bills. In short, based on his voting record, Joe Biden is not (and never was) a champion of disadvantaged Americans, unless you consider multi-billion-dollar credit card corporations and millionaires “disadvantaged.” Chris Talgo
THE DEMOCRAT PARTY LOVES THEIR
TECH BILLIONAIRES FOR OPEN BORDERS!!!
Scarborough: Zuckerberg, Musk ‘Robber Barons’; Tax Cuts ‘Grotesque’
0 seconds of 1 minute, 59 secondsVolume 90%
TRENT BAKER
16 Dec 2021 0
MSNBC “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough blasted Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Tesla founder and space entrepreneur Elon Musk on Thursday.
Scarborough described the two tech giants as “robber barons.” He also lamented the tax cuts from the 1980s and 1990s, which he supported, as well as the GOP’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, arguing they “created the greatest income redistribution in the history of the planet.”
“I don’t know that anybody since John Rockefeller has had as unfeathered power as Mark Zuckerberg has right now where no one stands up to him inside his company, no one stands up to him on the board, no one stands up to him in Congress, no one stands up to him at the White House, no one really stands up to him in the media. He is a robber baron. Elon Musk is a robber baron. These people are robber barons,” Scarborough proclaimed.
“And we have seen the greatest transfer of wealth, which Republicans love to say, ‘Oh, we don’t like to redistribute income.’ Oh, really? Well, the tax policies that I have supported through the ’80s and ’90s and continued to be supported by Republicans in the 21s century have created the greatest income redistribution in the history of this planet from middle-class Americans to the Elon Musks of the world,” he added. “It’s grotesque.”
Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent
Billionaires increased wealth by $3.6 trillion in 2020, as millions died from global pandemic Trévon Austin
The World Inequality Report 2022, released by the global research initiative World Inequality Lab, found that the COVID-19 pandemic has widened the financial gap between the rich and poor to a degree not seen since the rosy days of world imperialism at the turn of the 20th century.
The world’s billionaires enjoyed the steepest increase in their share of wealth last year since the World Inequality Lab began keeping records in 1995, according to the study released Tuesday. Billionaires saw their net worth grow by more than $3.6 trillion in 2020 alone, increasing their share of global wealth to 3.5 percent. Meanwhile, the pandemic has pushed approximately 100 million people into extreme poverty, boosting the global total to 711 million in 2021.
“Global inequalities seem to be about as great today as they were at the peak of western imperialism in the early 20th century,” the report said. “Indeed, the share of income presently captured by the poorest half of the world’s people is about half what it was in 1820, before the great divergence between western countries and their colonies.”
The report showed the wealthiest 10 percent of the world’s population takes 52 percent of global income, compared to the 8 percent share of the poorest half. On average, an individual in the top decile earns $122,100 (€87,200) per year, while a person from the poorest half of global earners makes $3,920 (€2,800) a year.
Global wealth inequality is even more pronounced than income inequality. The poorest half of the world’s population only possess 2 percent of the total wealth. In contrast, the wealthiest 10 percent own 76 percent of all wealth, with $771,300 (€550,900) on average.
The ultra-rich have siphoned a disproportionate share of global wealth growth over the last few decades. The top 1 percent took 38 percent of all additional wealth generated since 1995, whereas the bottom 50 percent have only captured 2 percent of it. The wealth of the richest individuals has grown between 6 to 9 percent per year since the mid-1990s, compared to the global 3.2 percent average.
Inequality levels vary across the regions. In Europe, the top decile takes about 36 percent of income share, while it holds 58 percent in the Middle East and North Africa. However, inequalities between countries have declined in the last two decades, whereas inequality within “rich” countries has risen sharply. In the United States, the top 1 percent owned 35 percent of the country’s wealth, approaching Gilded Age levels of inequality.
This massive accumulation of capital has come at the expense of public wealth over the last four decades. The share of wealth held by public actors is close to zero or negative in “rich” countries, indicating that the totality of wealth is privately owned, a trend exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic.
The report also studied connections between wealth inequality and inequalities in contributions to climate change, showing the top 10 percent of emitters are responsible for close to 50 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions, while the bottom half produces 12 percent of the total. This disparity is also seen within nominally rich countries. The bottom half of the population in Europe, East Asia, and North America is responsible for an average of 3 to 9 metric tons of emissions per person a year. This contrasts sharply with the emissions of the top 10 percent in these regions: 29 metric tons in Europe, 39 in East Asia, and 73 in North America.
Given this diverse and severe inequity, the authors of the report propose a series of “modern progressive taxes” on wealth used to invest in education, health, and ecological restoration.
But such a path is a dead end; All the official and semi-official institutions of government are subordinated to the interests of the financial aristocracy and serve to constrain and block any measure that threatens their hoards of wealth.
This is demonstrated by the disastrous response to the COVID-19 pandemic, with governments around the world declaring the pandemic over and eliminating remaining protective measures. Rather than being driven by concern for public health, the actions of governments have been driven by the effort to protect the wealth and privileges of the upper echelons of society.
The glaring contradiction between the world’s richest people and the precarious circumstances billions are living in is fueling a growing wave of working class militancy. The working class must demand the massive amount of wealth and resources hoarded by the wealthiest layers be seized and directed to fight the global pandemic.
The chief obstacle to solving the world’s burning social questions—whether the devastating impact of COVID-19 or the widespread growth of inequality—is the private profit interests of the capitalist ruling class. To save lives and avert even further disaster, workers must build an international socialist movement based on the interests of the working class.
THERE IS NO GREATER THREAT TO AMERICAN, THE AMERICAN MIDDLE CLASS OR AMERICAN BORDERS THAN AS PERPETRATED BY THE GLOBALIST DEMOCRAT PARTY
BIDEN CRONY JEFF 'BEZOSHEAD' BEZOS RECENTLY HANDED THE PHONY OBAMA LIBRARY A 'GIFT' OF $100 MILLION. JOE LOVES THE SMELL OF THAT! HE'S PLANNING A 'PRESDIENTIAL LIBRARY' AS WELL.
Make Amazon Pay wrote in a list of demands on its website: “The pandemic has exposed how Amazon places profits ahead of workers, society, and our planet. Amazon takes too much and gives back too little. It is time to Make Amazon Pay.”
Pelosi: Dems Are Using Cash for Kids As 'Leverage' to Pass BBB
By Susan Jones
(CNSNews.com) - Unless Senate Democrats join House Democrats in passing the partisan "Build Back Better Act (BBB)," there will be no more direct cash payments to millions of American families with children.
On Tuesday, a reporter asked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) if she would consider a stand-alone bill extending the monthly Child Tax Credit payments so the direct cash infusions can continue in 2022.
Pelosi admitted that she's using the payments as "leverage" to force passage of the Democrat agenda, much of contained in the multi-trillion-dollar BBB:
"Of course, we could pass that in the House," said Pelosi, who repeatedly insists that everything she does is “for the children."
Whether we could pass it in the Senate remains to be seen. But I don't want to let anybody off the hook on the BBB to say, well, we covered that one thing, so now the pressure is off. I think that that is really important leverage in a discussion on BBB that the children and their families will suffer without that payment.
Not everybody gets it on a monthly basis, but those who need it the most do. And so, we're just still optimistic about BBB passing. And perhaps even if it were after the first of the year, which I hope it is not, that it could be retroactive if it's early enough in the first of the year.
The Child Tax Credit gives qualifying families up to $3,600 a year for every child under age six and up to $3,000 a year for every child 6-17.
Normally, the credit is deducted from a family's taxable income. But Democrats, in the American Rescue Plan, raised the amount from $2,000 and delivered the credit in the form of monthly cash payments.
They also made families with little or no income -- those who don't pay any taxes -- eligible for the monthly payments.
Yesterday's (Dec. 15) payment could be the last one of its kind, unless Democrats pass the BBB, which extends the cash infusions for one year -- in addition to establishing other big government programs such as subsidized child care, paid family and medical leave, free pre-school for toddlers, help with home purchases, the green new deal, and much more -- all of it supposedly "fully paid for," as President Biden and his supporters insist.
Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee argue that "[g]ood jobs and rising paychecks do more to lift Americans out of poverty than dependence on never-ending government checks. There are a number of factors contributing to poverty. Rewarding work and helping the poor become self-sufficient is the surest path out of poverty," they say.
Republicans say Democrats intend to make the monthly cash payments permanent, starting with the one-year extension contained in BBB.
Republicans reject the Democrat claim that the Child Tax Credit has reduced child poverty by 40 percent.
"There is no sound evidence to back up this claim. Democrats cite a flawed study by the Poverty Center at Columbia University that assumes all eligible children are enrolled in the program -– which they are not," they say.
"In July, a left-leaning organization noted that only 720,000 of the approximately 7 million kids that are eligible but not already registered with the IRS were successfully receiving new child tax credit -- and that 90 percent or more of the kids the IRS needed to reach have not been reached."
Republicans also point to studies showing "that many recipients have used the Child Tax Credit to pad their savings or save for retirement. While commendable, that’s not its purpose," they say.
Moreover, the monthly payments are believed to be contributing to the shortage of willing workers.
ALL BILLIONAIRES ARE DEMOCRATS FOR OPEN BORDERS TO KEEP WAGES DEPRESSED. JOE BIDEN IS RIGHT THERE RUNNING THEIR SHOW!
GEORGE SOROS AND BARACK OBAMA CREATE THE PUPPET REGIME OF JOE BIDEN, AN AMERICAN DUPE FOR THE RICH
he second time was as Barack Obama’s vice president, where little was heard from him, but much has since surfaced about family conflicts of interest during that period, including illicit family business relationships with several adversary foreign countries.
By Donald N. Finley
What kind of man must Joe Biden be to accept being illegitimately put into the Oval Office?
We’ve all seen the clips. Nearly every recent Joe Biden public appearance has been an embarrassment. The media called his garbled statements 'gaffes,' as if they were innocent, harmless mistakes, but many have suggested far worse age-related cognitive failures. We experienced embarrassment with him, and pitied a man clearly past his prime. What seemed most prominent about Joe Biden, other than his mental decline, was his obsession with one singular goal -- to be president of the United States.
He first ran for president in the 1988 presidential election. He didn’t last until the first primary, being forced to drop out when caught in multiple lies about his background, his upbringing, his academic record, and for plagiarizing other politicians. Twenty years later, he ran again in the 2008 presidential election, but dropped out after coming in fifth in the Iowa caucuses, with less than 1% of the vote. He was later chosen as Barack Obama’s running mate.
After eight years of office there, and four years out, he announced his run in the 2020 presidential election, where his plagiarism problem came up again as some of his policy positions were lifted verbatim from other organizations. The blame was immediately deflected to his staff, and the scandal seemed not to touch him.
For most politicians, such scandals end careers, but Joe Biden outlasted the scandals, and remained in office for more than four decades, really only rising above the noise on three occasions.
The first was as Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee during the Clarence Thomas Supreme Court confirmation hearings, where he conducted what Thomas called “a high tech lynching” of a black man who dared to be a conservative. Thomas was still confirmed, though, and remains on the court today.
The second time was as Barack Obama’s vice president, where little was heard from him, but much has since surfaced about family conflicts of interest during that period, including illicit family business relationships with several adversary foreign countries.
Third, and finally, is the present day. While the election is still contested, and more evidence of widespread Democrat fraud surfaces daily, Biden speaks and behaves as if he were the clear and universally accepted victor.
Looking back, one may ask, ‘Why didn’t Biden run in 2016 as the heir-apparent after eight years as vice president?’ He claims it was due to the death of his son, but here's the far more likely answer: Because Obama lacked confidence in him.
Obama said of Hillary , in 2016: "I don't think there's ever been someone so qualified to hold this office."
When Biden announced his 2020 run, Obama reportedly told him , “You don’t have to do this, Joe, you really don’t.”
During the campaign, Obama said of Biden , “Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to f**k things up.” In reference to a connection to the Democrat electorate, Obama said, “And you know who really doesn’t have it? Joe Biden.”
Obama’s own Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, wrote in his 2014 memoir, while Obama and Biden were still in office, that Joe Biden “has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.”
Ben Rhodes, Obama’s former deputy national security adviser, wrote , "...in the Situation Room, Biden could be something of an unguided missile.”
The picture is getting clearer as to the kind of man Joe Biden is, from those who worked closest with him.
But there’s more.
In 1972, only weeks after Biden’s first election to the Senate, Neilia and Naomi Biden were tragically killed in a collision with a tractor trailer. His sons, Beau and Hunter, were both seriously injured and hospitalized. Neilia was Joe Biden’s first wife, and Naomi his 13-month old daughter. During a public appearance in 2007, Biden told his audience , “A tractor-trailer, a guy who allegedly — and I never pursued it — drank his lunch instead of eating his lunch, broadsided my family and killed my wife instantly and killed my daughter instantly and hospitalized my two sons …” He had also told the story in 2001.
The truck driver was Curtis C. Dunn, and he was not drunk. In 2008, Delaware Superior Court Judge, Jerome O. Herlihy, who oversaw the police investigation as chief prosecutor, recalled that Mrs. Biden drove into the path of Dunn’s tractor-trailer, and he did all he could to avoid hitting the car, including overturning his truck and trailer. Following the collision, Dunn ran to the car and was the first to render aid. He remained traumatized by the accident, and the media’s repeated retelling of it, for 27 years, until his death in 1999.
In 2008, Dunn’s daughter, Pamela Hamill , said she had had enough of Joe Biden’s lies about her father, and demanded an apology. “I just burst into tears,” Hamill said . “The story already is tragic enough. Why did he have to sensationalize it by saying my father was drunk? My family is outraged.”
Hamill told Politico in 2019 that Biden did apologize in 2009, a full ten years too late for the man he had wrongfully and repeatedly publicly humiliated.
In 1977, Joe married Jill after her first marriage had broken up. They met on a blind date in 1975. That’s the romantic story they tell, but her first husband, Bill Stevenson , tells it differently. He says he and Jill had helped on Biden’s first campaign in 1972, and that he first suspected they were having an affair in 1974. "Then one of her best friends told me she thought Joe and Jill were getting a little too close. I was surprised that she came to me.” Soon afterward, he discovered the truth. Today, Stevenson says , “Joe Biden stole Jill from me.”
It’s clear Joe Biden is not the type whose intelligence, competence, or mastery of even a single topic has ever been a point of envy. Those he worked with have not thought highly of him, and the few times he has risen into the spotlight, he has failed to accomplish anything of note on his own accord. Without the coattails of another, namely Barack Obama, Joe Biden would have vanished from public life over a decade ago. Had it not been for other Democrats sabotaging Bernie Sanders in the 2020 Democrat primary, Biden would have certainly fallen away early. If he hadn’t sold his soul to the socialist and progressive wings of their fractured party to get support, the Democrats couldn’t have manufactured enough votes to save him.
There is one certainty about Joe Biden, and Barack Obama capitalized upon it. So did China . So did Ukraine . So did Iraq . So did Kazakhstan , and others. One thing he has proven time and time again is that he’s for sale. He will take the position and use his elected powers to implement the policy most beneficial to Joe Biden and his family. Remember the flip-flopping fracking fiasco? He is a piece of moldable flesh, a useful idiot , who will do what he’s told and paid to do. His positions change as his handlers change. He is wholly void of any core beliefs, a single bank of knowledge he could be considered an expert in, the ability to think for himself, or any recognizable moral principles. His Catholic faith does not even conform to the Catholic Church teachings .
The question is not whether Joe Biden is a liar , it is whether he is a compulsive liar (sees his lies as clearly untrue, but cannot stop himself from telling them; lies out of habit) , or a pathological liar (sometimes believe their own lies; plan their lies in advance) . He’s also a serial liar (lies repeatedly over time) . But whatever type, he is undoubtedly a liar. Proof: here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , and here . That’s more than enough.
So back to the original question: What kind of man must Joe Biden be to accept being illegitimately put into the Oval Office? From his speech on Monday, after the Electoral College vote, I must reiterate everything above, and add one more word: Oblivious.
Donald N. Finley is a retired U.S. Air Force Colonel.
JOE BIDEN: A DEDICATED SERVANT OF WALL STREET, THE RICH, AND BANKSTERS….
JOE BIDEN’S GLOBALIST AGENDA: BANKSTERS, BAILOUTS and a BORDERLESS AMERICA
https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2020/11/lawyer-joe-bidens-kleptocracy-joe-and.html
The Biden family is notorious for being the crookedest clan not only in Delaware, but in D.C. DANIEL GREENFILED, FELLOW, SHILLMAN JOURNALISM, FREEDOM CENTER
The Hunter Biden laptop unrolls two ragged threads. One is the descent of Joe Biden’s son into new depths of depravity and the other are the foreign investors who bought into Joe Biden Inc.
If they can buy an election for Biden, the theory is, they can buy it for anyone.
Oligarchies always have lots of money even when workers go hungry and lose their homes. And they get that money by seizing the centers of power and consuming the wealth of nations.
Yang: ‘Return to the Obama Years’ Not Enough for Biden — They Were Left Behind in Those Years,’ ‘They’re Pissed Off’ JEFF POOR
Late Tuesday on CNN, former Democratic presidential hopeful Andrew Yang, now a CNN contributor, warned that his old opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden could not defeat Trump with just a pledge to return to the years of former President Barack Obama alone.
According to Yang, it needed to start with an understanding of what problems facing the country led to Trump’s presidency.
“Donald Trump needs to be defeated,” he explained. “Forty-two percent of my supporters said they would not support the Democratic nominee in the general, in large part because when I ran, I ran for the problems that predated Trump. Like, Donald Trump would never be our president today if things were going well for a lot of people around the country. Bernie Sanders would not have almost been the nominee last time if things were going well for people around the country. So even as Joe Biden saying, ‘Hey, we need to defeat Donald Trump,’ he also has to say, ‘Look, things have not been working for millions of Americans, and after we defeat Donald Trump,’ we need to get deep into these problems, get our hands dirty and solve them. This can’t be a, ‘Hey, I’m better than Trump’ race. It has to be, ‘Hey. I understand how Trump became our president.'”
Yang told a CNN panel people were left behind in the Obama-Biden years, and they were not happy about it. He called on Biden to recognize that situation and address it, which he said would better his chances in the 2020 general election.
“I think he’s been talking about restoring a culture, tone and a soul of the country,” Yang added. “I was talking about putting more money in Americans’ hands because I saw we decimated entire ways of life in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin. And because I was talking in those terms about the real problems these people have experienced, again, 42% of my supporters were not going to support the Democratic nominee. I’m hoping that we can get some of those people to support Joe. But it would be helpful if Joe acknowledged it because one of the weaknesses of saying, ‘Hey, return to Obama years’ is that there are many Americans who were getting behind in those years, too, and they’re pissed off. And so, if you say, I’m going to revert, that loses to that group of people. There are so many Americans who just don’t think their institutions are working for him at all, and Joe Biden’s’s weakness is he represents those institutions. I’m endorsing Joe. We need Joe to beat Trump. But we’ll have a much better chance of that if Joe recognizes that our institutions have been failing many Americans for a long time.”
Obama’s State of Delusion ... OR JUST ANOTHER "Hope & Change" HOAX?
22 January 2015
”The delusional character of Obama’s State of the Union
address on Tuesday—presenting an America of rising living
standards and a booming economy, capped by his declaration
that the “shadow of crisis has passed”—is perhaps matched
only in its presentation by the media and supporters of the
Democratic Party.”
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2015/01/oxfam-richest-one-percent-set-to.html
“The general tone was set by the New York Times in its lead editorial on Wednesday, which described the speech as a “simple, dramatic message about economic fairness, about the fact that the well-off—the top earners, the big banks, Silicon Valley—have done just great, while middle and working classes remain dead in the water.”
OBAMANOMICS:
The report observes that while the wealth of the world’s 80 richest people doubled between 2009 and 2014, the wealth of the poorest half of the world’s population (3.5 billion people) was lower in 2014 than it was in 2009.
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2015/01/oxfam-richest-one-percent-set-to.html
In 2010, it took 388 billionaires to match the wealth of the bottom half of the earth’s population; by 2013, the figure had fallen to just 92 billionaires. It fell to 80 in 2014.
THE OBAMA ASSAULT ON THE AMERICAN MIDDLE-CLASS
“The goal of the Obama administration, working with the Republicans and local governments, is to roll back the living conditions of the vast majority of the population to levels not seen since the 19th century, prior to the advent of the eight-hour day, child labor laws, comprehensive public education, pensions, health benefits, workplace health and safety regulations, etc.”
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2015/01/oxfam-richest-one-percent-set-to.html
“In response to the ruthless assault of the financial oligarchy, spearheaded by Obama, the working class must advance, no less ruthlessly, its own policy.”
New Federal Reserve report US median income has plunged, inequality has grown in Obama “recovery” The yearly income of a typical US household dropped by a massive 12 percent, or $6,400, in the six years between 2007 and 2013. This is just one of the findings of the 2013 Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances released Thursday, which documents a sharp decline in working class living standards and a further concentration of wealth in the hands of the rich and the super-rich. New Federal Reserve reportUS median income has plunged, inequality has grown in Obama “recovery” The yearly income of a typical US household dropped by a massive 12 percent, or $6,400, in the six years between 2007 and 2013. This is just one of the findings of the 2013 Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances released Thursday, which documents a sharp decline in working class living standards and a further concentration of wealth in the hands of the rich and the super-rich. The report makes clear that the drop in a typical household’s income was not merely the result of what is referred to as the 2008 recession, which officially lasted only 18 months, through June 2009. Much of the decline in workers’ incomes occurred during the so-called “economic recovery” presided over by the Obama administration. In the three years between 2010 and 2013, the annual income of a typical household actually fell by 5 percent. The Fed report exposes as a fraud the efforts of the Obama administration to present itself as a defender of the “middle class”. It has systematically pursued policies to redistribute wealth from the bottom to the very top of the income ladder. These include the multi-trillion-dollar bailout of the banks, near-zero interest rates to drive up the stock market, and austerity measures and wage cutting to lift corporate profits and CEO pay to record highs. The Federal Reserve data, based on in-person interviews, show a far larger decline in the median income of American households than indicated by earlier figures from the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey. In line with the figures on household income, the report shows an ever-growing concentration of wealth among the richest households. The Fed’s summary of its data notes that “the wealth share of the top 3 percent climbed from 44.8 percent in 1989 to 51.8 percent in 2007 and 54.4 percent in 2013,” while the wealth of the “next 7 highest percent of families changed very little.” The report states that “the rising wealth share of the top 3 percent of families is mirrored by the declining share of wealth held by the bottom 90 percent,” which fell from 33.2 percent in 1989 to 24.7 percent in 2013. The ongoing impoverishment of the population is an indictment of capitalism. There has been no genuine recovery from the Wall Street crash of 2008, only a further plundering of the economy by the financial aristocracy. The crisis precipitated by the rapacious, criminal practices of the bankers and hedge fund speculators has been used to restructure the economy to the benefit of the rich at the expense of everyone else. Decent-paying jobs have been wiped out and replaced by low-wage, part-time and temporary jobs, with little or no benefits. Pensions and health benefits have come under savage attack, as seen in the bankruptcy of Detroit. Not surprisingly, the Fed report has been buried by the American media, confined to the inside pages of the major newspapers. Measured in 2013 dollars, a typical household received an income of $53,100 in 2007. By 2010, this had fallen to $49,000. It hit $46,700 by 2013. At the same time, the average income for the wealthiest tenth of families grew by ten percent. While median income fell between 2010 and 2013, mean (average) income grew, from $84,100 to $87,200. The report noted that, “the decline in median income coupled with the rise in mean income is consistent with a widening income distribution during this period.” For the poorest households, the drop in income has been even more dramatic. Among the bottom quarter of households, mean income fell a full 10 percent between 2010 and 2013. The report reveals other aspects of the social crisis. The share of young families burdened by education debt nearly doubled, from 22.4 percent to 38.8 percent, between 2001 and 2013. The share of young families with more than $100,000 in debt has grown nearly tenfold, from 0.6 percent to 5.6 percent. These statistics reflect both a historic and insoluble crisis of the profit system and the brutal policies of the American ruling class, which is carrying out a relentless assault on working people and preparing to go even further by dismantling bedrock social programs such as Medicare and Social Security. The data undercuts the endless talk of “partisan gridlock” in Washington and the media presentation of a political system paralyzed by irreconcilable differences between the Democratic and Republican parties. There has, in fact, been a seamless continuity between the Bush and Obama administrations in the pursuit of reactionary policies of war abroad and class war at home. The two parties have worked hand in glove to make the working class pay for the crisis of the capitalist system. The Federal Reserve has itself played a critical role in the growth of social inequality in the US. The bailout of the banks, estimated at $7 trillion, has been followed by six years of virtually free money for the banks. Every facet of American life is dominated by the immense concentration of wealth at the very top of society. The grotesque levels of wealth amassed by the parasites and criminals who dominate American business, and the flaunting of their fortunes before tens of millions struggling to pay their bills and keep from falling into destitution, are fueling the growth of social anger. This anger will increasingly be directed against the entire economic and political system. The figures released by the Fed reflect a society riven by class divisions that must inevitably trigger social upheavals. The explosive state of social relations is itself a major factor in the endless recourse by the Obama administration to military aggression and war, which serve to deflect internal tensions outward. The growth of inequality likewise underlies the relentless attack on democratic rights in the US, including the massive domestic spying exposed by Edward Snowden and the use of militarized police to crack down on social opposition, as seen most recently in Ferguson, Missouri. THE OBAMA devastation of America (wall street's poster boy for corruption) THE SPEEDING TRAIN WRECK TO DESTRUCTION: BARACK OBAMA'S CRONY CAPITALISM, WALL STREET'S UNFETTERED LOOTING AND THE INVASION AND OCCUPATION OF THE MEXICAN FASCIST PARTY of LA RAZA. . .. one man's utter destruction of America! Year-low US job growth in August By Andre Damon 6 September 2014 The US economy added fewer jobs last month than any other month this the year, according to the latest US jobs report, published Friday by the Labor Department. US employers added 142,000 jobs in August, far lower than the average of more than 200,00 for the prior twelve months, and below the 230,000 that had been forecast by economists. In addition to the worse-than-expected statistics for August, the report revised down estimates for job growth in earlier months by 28,000. Stocks rallied at the dismal jobs report, reflecting the perverse relationship between the real economy and the financial markets, which interpret any worsening of the economic situation as a signal that the Federal Reserve will be reluctant to raise interest rates and slow its “Quantitative easing” asset purchases. The S&P 500 hit a new record Friday, closing up by 10 points, or 0.5 percent, to 2,007. The NASDAQ also rose by .45 percent, to 4,582, and the Dow Jones industrial average rose by 0.4 percent, to 17,137. While the stock market sets record after record, fueled by zero-interest rate policies and cash infusions from the world’s central banks, the real economy and conditions for working people show no signs of improvement. The unemployment rate fell to 6.1 percent, as 268,000 people gave up looking for jobs and left the workforce. The number of such “missing workers” grew to 5.91 million last month, according to figures from the Economic Policy Institute. The labor force participation rate fell to 62.8 percent, its lowest level in three-and-a-half decades, as the number of adults not in the labor force hit a new record. Wages were flat over the previous twelve months, with a 2.1 percent nominal wage increase wiped out by a 2 percent inflation rate over the same period. While there were zero jobs added in manufacturing, the economy added 112,000 jobs in the service sector, which pays significantly lower median wages than goods-producing industries. The healthcare sector added 42,000 jobs, while bars and restaurants added 21,500. Temporary help services added 13,000 jobs. Earlier this month, the National Employment Law Project (NELP) reported that both the number of people working for labor contractors and the percentage of the workforce employed by such companies have hit record highs. New Federal Reserve report US median income has plunged, inequality has grown in Obama “recovery” By Andre Damon 6 September 2014 The yearly income of a typical US household dropped by a massive 12 percent, or $6,400, in the six years between 2007 and 2013. This is just one of the findings of the 2013 Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances released Thursday, which documents a sharp decline in working class living standards and a further concentration of wealth in the hands of the rich and the super-rich. The report makes clear that the drop in a typical household’s income was not merely the result of what is referred to as the 2008 recession, which officially lasted only 18 months, through June 2009. Much of the decline in workers’ incomes occurred during the so-called “economic recovery” presided over by the Obama administration. In the three years between 2010 and 2013, the annual income of a typical household actually fell by 5 percent. The Fed report exposes as a fraud the efforts of the Obama administration to present itself as a defender of the “middle class”. It has systematically pursued policies to redistribute wealth from the bottom to the very top of the income ladder. These include the multi-trillion-dollar bailout of the banks, near-zero interest rates to drive up the stock market, and austerity measures and wage cutting to lift corporate profits and CEO pay to record highs. The Federal Reserve data, based on in-person interviews, show a far larger decline in the median income of American households than indicated by earlier figures from the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey. In line with the figures on household income, the report shows an ever-growing concentration of wealth among the richest households. The Fed’s summary of its data notes that “the wealth share of the top 3 percent climbed from 44.8 percent in 1989 to 51.8 percent in 2007 and 54.4 percent in 2013,” while the wealth of the “next 7 highest percent of families changed very little.” The report states that “the rising wealth share of the top 3 percent of families is mirrored by the declining share of wealth held by the bottom 90 percent,” which fell from 33.2 percent in 1989 to 24.7 percent in 2013. The ongoing impoverishment of the population is an indictment of capitalism. There has been no genuine recovery from the Wall Street crash of 2008, only a further plundering of the economy by the financial aristocracy. The crisis precipitated by the rapacious, criminal practices of the bankers and hedge fund speculators has been used to restructure the economy to the benefit of the rich at the expense of everyone else. Decent-paying jobs have been wiped out and replaced by low-wage, part-time and temporary jobs, with little or no benefits. Pensions and health benefits have come under savage attack, as seen in the bankruptcy of Detroit. Not surprisingly, the Fed report has been buried by the American media, confined to the inside pages of the major newspapers. Measured in 2013 dollars, a typical household received an income of $53,100 in 2007. By 2010, this had fallen to $49,000. It hit $46,700 by 2013. At the same time, the average income for the wealthiest tenth of families grew by ten percent. While median income fell between 2010 and 2013, mean (average) income grew, from $84,100 to $87,200. The report noted that, “the decline in median income coupled with the rise in mean income is consistent with a widening income distribution during this period.” For the poorest households, the drop in income has been even more dramatic. Among the bottom quarter of households, mean income fell a full 10 percent between 2010 and 2013. The report reveals other aspects of the social crisis. The share of young families burdened by education debt nearly doubled, from 22.4 percent to 38.8 percent, between 2001 and 2013. The share of young families with more than $100,000 in debt has grown nearly tenfold, from 0.6 percent to 5.6 percent. These statistics reflect both a historic and insoluble crisis of the profit system and the brutal policies of the American ruling class, which is carrying out a relentless assault on working people and preparing to go even further by dismantling bedrock social programs such as Medicare and Social Security. The data undercuts the endless talk of “partisan gridlock” in Washington and the media presentation of a political system paralyzed by irreconcilable differences between the Democratic and Republican parties. There has, in fact, been a seamless continuity between the Bush and Obama administrations in the pursuit of reactionary policies of war abroad and class war at home. The two parties have worked hand in glove to make the working class pay for the crisis of the capitalist system. The Federal Reserve has itself played a critical role in the growth of social inequality in the US. The bailout of the banks, estimated at $7 trillion, has been followed by six years of virtually free money for the banks. Every facet of American life is dominated by the immense concentration of wealth at the very top of society. The grotesque levels of wealth amassed by the parasites and criminals who dominate American business, and the flaunting of their fortunes before tens of millions struggling to pay their bills and keep from falling into destitution, are fueling the growth of social anger. This anger will increasingly be directed against the entire economic and political system. The figures released by the Fed reflect a society riven by class divisions that must inevitably trigger social upheavals. The explosive state of social relations is itself a major factor in the endless recourse by the Obama administration to military aggression and war, which serve to deflect internal tensions outward. The growth of inequality likewise underlies the relentless attack on democratic rights in the US, including the massive domestic spying exposed by Edward Snowden and the use of militarized police to crack down on social opposition, as seen most recently in Ferguson, Missouri. THE OBAMA devastation of America (wall street's poster boy for corruption) THE SPEEDING TRAIN WRECK TO DESTRUCTION: BARACK OBAMA'S CRONY CAPITALISM, WALL STREET'S UNFETTERED LOOTING AND THE INVASION AND OCCUPATION OF THE MEXICAN FASCIST PARTY of LA RAZA. . .. one man's utter destruction of America! The Obamas tackle climate change and wealth inequality By John Eidson
In a remarkable commitment to their tireless fight against climate change and wealth inequality, Barack and Michelle Obama reportedly are purchasing a magnificent $15-million oceanfront mansion in Martha’s Vineyard, presumably as a much-needed retreat to supplement the $9-million mansion they already own in one of the most exclusive areas of the nation’s capitol.
A fierce opponent of fossil fuels and wealth inequality, the former president has harshly criticized rich people for the oversized, carbon-gluttonous houses they buy. On April 25, 2010, the president who would become fabulously wealthy in retirement scolded Wall Street CEOs with this admonition:
I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money.
His views about the sin of making too much money haven’t changed. During a speech last year in South Africa, this shining example of environmental stewardship and unparalleled concern for the poor spoke passionately about the unfairness of some people having more money than others in blasting rich people for their excessively lavish lifestyles:
There’s only so much you can eat; there’s only so big a house you can have; there’s only so many nice trips you can take. I mean, it’s enough.
That direct quote came from the lips of a man who, along with his wife, is sitting atop a nest egg estimated at a meager $135 million . But don’t feel sorry for them, because there’s much more to come: with money barreling their way like a runaway train, the concerned couple is rapidly becoming a billion-dollar brand .
Sharing with the less fortunate: During the five years from 2000-2004, a period when they earned $1.2 million, Barack and Michelle Obama donated less than one percent of their income to charity, ten times less than the tithing guidelines of their professed Christian faith. Only when Obama decided to run for president did the couple’s charitable instincts improve.
Protecting the planet : During his first full day in the White House, President Obama was photographed without his suit jacket. Senior advisor David Axelrod explained: “He’s from Hawaii, okay? He likes it warm. You could grow orchids in there.” While campaigning, Obama vowed to exhibit environmental leadership if elected: “We can’t drive our SUV’s and eat as much as we want and keep our thermostats set at 72 degrees. That’s not leadership. That’s not going to happen [with me].”
In decreeing that rich people make too much money and that global warming is an imminent threat to our very survival, this ultra-wealthy man and his ultra-wealthy wife decided to indulge themselves in another opulent mansion, this one sitting on 29 oceanfront acres on one of the most exclusive islands in the world. While homeless people are sleeping on the streets and our planet is being destroyed by CO2, the Obamas are living large, a pitifully small reward for two remarkable people who bend over backwards to show leadership in the fight against climate change and wealth inequality.
An electrical engineering graduate of Georgia Tech and now retired, John Eidson is a freelance writer in Atlanta. American Thinker recently published related article of his titled " Harrison Ford, Climate Hypocrite " and " A $600 fill-up? "
THE OBOMBS HAVE ALWAYS LIVED LIKE THE 1% WHOM THEY SERVED AND GROVELED AT THE FEET OF.
Nolte: Michelle Obama Condemns ‘White Flight’ After Purchasing Home in Martha’s Vineyard
Gerardo Mora/Getty Images
JOHN NOLTE
31 Oct 2019 113
5:28
Former first lady Michelle Obama condemned white people for fleeing minority neighborhoods just weeks after she and her husband purchased a $15 million estate in Martha’s Vineyard. Martha’s Vineyard is 95 percent white and just two percent black.
Martha’s Vineyard is almost as white as an Elizabeth Warren rally.
Martha’s Vineyard is whiter than my subdivision here in rural North Carolina.
Martha’s Vineyard is whiter than MSNBC.
During a Tuesday appearance at the Obama Foundation Summit in Chicago, she said, “But unbeknownst to us, we grew up in the period — as I write — called ‘white flight.’ That as families like ours, upstanding families like ours … As we moved in, white folks moved out because they were afraid of what our families represented.”
“And I always stop there when I talk about this out in the world because, you know, I want to remind white folks that y’all were running from us.” She went on, “This family with all the values that you’ve read about. You were running from us. And you’re still running, because we’re no different than the immigrant families that are moving in … the families that are coming from other places to try to do better.”
Did I mention that Michelle and Barry just purchased a $15 million estate in Martha’s Vineyard, which is 95 percent white?
Oh, and did I mention the Obamas own a second home, an $8 million mansion, in the exclusive DC neighborhood of Kalorama , which is 80 percent white and just four percent black .
Oh, and did I mention the Obamas have a third home, a $5.3 million mansion, in Rancho Mirage, California, which is 89 percent white and just 2.6 percent black .
Oh, sure, the Obamas still own their Chicago home in Hyde Park, which is at least 26 percent black. But you would think they could do better than 26 percent!
I like Michelle Obama. I have always liked Michelle Obama. I’ve never said an unkind word about her, quite the opposite, and while I find her politics ignorant, she was a terrific first lady.
But this is nuts…
Not only is she attacking white people for seeking a better standard of living, which I can assure you (as I will explain below) has little to do with racism, she is also attacking whites after she herself “fled” to 95 percent white Martha’s Vineyard (I will never stop repeating this point) and two other homes in areas where the black population is less than 5 percent.
Worse still, she is putting white people in a position where they can never win, where they are damned if they do or don’t, where they are always and forever racist.
If white people move out of a black neighborhood, they’re racists engaging in white flight.
But…
And this is important…
If white people move into a minority neighborhood, they are also racists for either engaging in gentrification — which is just another form of cultural genocide, donchaknow — or cultural appropriation.
Now I’m going to tell you a little something about white flight, from my own experience…
Because I was poor, back in the mid-eighties, I lived in the inner-city of Milwaukee for two years. My wife and I did not flee (my wife is not white, by the way) because of “icky minorities” (did I mention my wife is not white?), we fled because it was not safe to live there. It was never safe. Over those two years, we had been mugged, robbed, and had our car stolen. That’s why we left.
And when we fled, it was to a community that was still not as white as *ahem* Martha’s Vineyard.
In 2002, my wife and I moved to California for nine years and lived in an East Los Angeles neighborhood that was just four percent white. For nearly a decade, I was outnumbered 96-4 and never gave it a thought because I was not outnumbered. A darker skin tone, an accent, and different religious traditions did not make my neighbors any less American than me, and when I am among Americans I am among my own. We left because predominantly white leftists are destroying California.
Then there’s my poor dad…
He moved to the Northside of Milwaukee in 1980, and spent decades, a lot of money, and a ton of sweat, remodeling his home, building a garage, and paying that home off. He intended to retire there. And yes, there were black people in his neighborhood when he moved in, and for most of his adult life he worked in predominantly black institutions. He never intended to move, and held on for as long as he could… He didn’t flee because of black people. He was not forced to start all over at age 67 because he suddenly decided he didn’t like blacks. He left because he was robbed, because gangs started tagging his house and garage, because it was no longer safe to live there.
You know…
If we’re going to shame people for such things, what does it say to black people when other black people, especially the first black president and his family, reject them? What the hell kind of message is this to send to black Americans, especially when the Obamas can afford the security to live safely in any neighborhood they choose?
And if the Obamas wanted to live in Southern California, why choose Rancho Mirage over Ladera Heights, the Black Beverly Hills, a predominantly black neighborhood as swank as any in America?
Shame on Michelle and Barack Obama. They have the money and profile to make an important statement on this issue, but they obviously prefer to live in overwhelmingly white neighborhoods.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC . Follow his Facebook Page here .
Diamond Life: Michelle Obama rents out $23-million Hollywood Hills mansion for a night
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/07/diamond_life_michelle_obama_rents_out_23_million_hollywood_hills_mansion_for_a_night.html
By Monica Showalter
Apparently, a hotel, even a luxury hotel, was not good enough.
Former first lady Michelle Obama had to go big, renting out a $23-million Hollywood Hills mansion for...a night. The New York Post has the pictures of it here . Several news accounts explained it as possibly a rental to try and buy, something most home-buyers don't get to do. Whether she actually paid is also a big question mark, and if so, whether she paid market value (which would have cost more than a fancy hotel) or received her night there a "gift," which presents its own ethics problems.
Here's what a local CBS report said the place was like :
The Shark House, which is located in the 9200 block of Swallow Drive, is thus named due to its open air shark aquarium. It also has a full spa, a humidor room, movie theater and walk-in wine room.
It's on the market, currently listed for a cool $22.9 million.
A source told TMZ the Obamas may be looking at real estate in the Hollywood Hills area, but that was not confirmed.
If they're in the market to buy that, they've got a lot more money than the press is reporting. We know they're loaded. But not that loaded. Not Louis XIV loaded, which is about the range for this sort of place. Or is it a sweetheart deal in the works we're talking about? Maybe they'll end up buying it for "a dollar." Don't know yet, but neither possibility makes them look good.
It's all part and parcel of the Obamas' long, luxurious post-presidency, a nonstop vacay that costs taxpayers millions. It's as though we're financing kings now, not retired presidents. For a while there, the Obamas were jetting around with billionaires and staying on private islands . Then they bought that expensive Kalorama mansion in Washington, D.C., all supposedly for the benefit of their daughter Sasha, who was finishing high school. Surprise, surprise, it actually seems to primarily serve as a political watch post for longtime Obama loyalist and consigliere Valerie Jarrett. They did some audience tours and hung out with more billionaires. There were those lucrative Goldman Sachs speeches by the celebrity president (which certainly weren't based on economics anyone would want to trade on).
And all of this has been financed by taxpayers, who pay his $207,000 pension , along with bennies such as unlimited air travel, transition expenses, office expenses, presidential library funds, and lifetime Secret Service detail.
Apparently, to the Obamas, there's no reaching that " certain point " at which "you've made enough money."
For Michelle, just call her "Mooch." Is this really what an ex-presidency is supposed to be like? Hitting the money jackpot? What he makes on his own is his own business (subject to bribery laws), but taxpayers shouldn't be financing this level of movie-star billionaire luxe life. Maybe it's time for some pension reform from Congress. Would be quite a thing to see that idea presented to the House's ruling Democrats.
OBAMAnomics: Billionaire Class Enjoys 15X the Wage Growth of American Working Class
The billionaire class — the country’s top 0.01 percent of earners — have enjoyed more than 15 times as much wage growth as America’s working and middle class since 1979, new wage data reveals. Between 1979 and 2017, the wages of the bottom 90 percent — the country’s working and lower middle class — have grown by only about 22 percent, Economic Policy Institute (EPI) researchers find.
Compare that small wage increase over nearly four decades to the booming wage growth of America’s top one percent, who have seen their wages grow more than 155 percent during the same period.
The top 0.01 percent — the country’s billionaire class — saw their wages grow by more than 343 percent in the last four decades, more than 15 times the wage growth of the bottom 90 percent of Americans.
In 1979, America’s working class was earning on average about $29,600 a year. Fast forward to 2017, and the same bottom 90 percent of Americans are earning only about $6,600 more annually.
The almost four decades of wage stagnation among the country’s working and middle class comes as the national immigration policy has allowed for the admission of more than 1.5 million mostly low-skilled immigrants every year.
(Public Citizen)
In the last decade, alone, the U.S. admitted ten million legal immigrants, forcing American workers to compete against a growing population of low-wage workers. Meanwhile, employers are able to reduce wages and drive up their profit margins thanks to the annual low-skilled immigration scheme.
The Washington, DC- imposed mass immigration policy is a boon to corporate executives, Wall Street, big business, and multinational conglomerates as every one percent increase in the immigrant composition of an occupation’s labor force reduces Americans’ hourly wages by 0.4 percent. Every one percent increase in the immigrant workforce reduces Americans’ overall wages by 0.8 percent.
Mass immigration has come at the expense of America’s working and middle class, which has suffered from poor job growth, stagnant wages, and increased public costs to offset the importation of millions of low-skilled foreign nationals.
Four million young Americans enter the workforce every year, but their job opportunities are further diminished as the U.S. imports roughly two new foreign workers for every four American workers who enter the workforce. Even though researchers say 30 percent of the workforce could lose their jobs due to automation by 2030, the U.S. has not stopped importing more than a million foreign nationals every year.
For blue-collar American workers, mass immigration has not only kept wages down but in many cases decreased wages, as Breitbart News reported . Meanwhile, the U.S. continues importing more foreign nationals with whom working-class Americans are forced to compete. In 2016, the U.S. brought in about 1.8 million mostly low-skilled immigrants.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder .
Study: Elite Zip Codes Thrived in Obama Recovery, Rural America Left Behind
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2018/12/10/study-elite-zip-codes-thrived-in-obama-recovery-rural-america-left-behind/
4:49
Wealthy cities and elite zip codes thrived under the slow-moving economic recovery of President Obama while rural American communities were left behind, a study reveals. The Economic Innovation Group research, highlighted by Axios , details the massive economic inequality between the country’s coastal city elites and middle America’s working class between the Great Recession in 2007 and Obama’s economic recovery in 2016.
Between 2007 and 2016, the number of residents living in elite zip codes grew by more than ten million, with an overwhelming faction of that population growth being driven by mass immigration where the U.S. imports more than 1.5 million illegal and legal immigrants annually.
The booming 44.5 million immigrant populations are concentrated mostly in the country’s major cities like Los Angeles, California, Miami Florida, and New York City, New York. The rapidly growing U.S. population — driven by immigration — is set to hit 404 million by 2060, a boon for real estate developers, wealthy investors, and corporations, all of which benefit greatly from dense populations and a flooded labor market.
The economic study found that while the population grew in wealthy cities, America’s rural population fell by nearly 3.5 million residents.
Likewise, by 2016, elite zip codes had a surplus of 3.6 million jobs, which is more than the combined bottom 80 percent of American zip codes. While it only took about five years for wealthy cities to replace the jobs lost by the recession, it took “at risk” regions of the country a decade to recover, and “distressed” U.S. communities are “unlikely ever to recover on current trendlines,” the report predicts.
A map included in the research shows how rich, coastal metropolises have boomed economically while entire portions of middle America have been left behind as job and business gains remain concentrated at the top of the income ladder.
(Economic Innovation Group)
(Economic Innovation Group)
Economic growth among the country’s middle-class counties and middle-class zip codes has considerably trailed national economic growth, the study found.
For example, between 2012 and 2016, there were 4.4 percent more business establishments in the country as a whole. That growth was less than two percent in the median zip code and there was close to no growth in the median county.
The same can be said of employment growth, where U.S. employment grew by about 9.3 percent from 2012 to 2016. In the median zip code, though, employment grew by only 5.5 percent and in the median county, employment grew by less than four percent.
“Nearly three in every five large counties added businesses on net over the period, compared to only one in every five small one,” the report concluded.
Elite zip codes added more business establishments during Obama’s economic recovery, between 2012 and 2016, than the entire bottom 80 percent of zip codes combined. For instance, while more than 180,000 businesses have been added to rich zip codes, the country’s bottom tier has lost more than 13,000 businesses even after the economic recovery.
(Economic Innovation Group)
(Economic Innovation Group)
The gutting of the American manufacturing base, through free trade, has been a driving catalyst for the collapse of the white working class and black Americans. Simultaneously, the outsourcing of the economy has brought major wealth to corporations, tech conglomerates, and Wall Street.
The dramatic decline of U.S. manufacturing at the hands of free trade—where more than 3.4 million American jobs have been lost solely due to free trade with China, not including the American jobs lost due to agreements like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the United States-Korea Free Trade Agreement (KORUS)—has coincided with growing wage inequality for white and black Americans, a growing number of single mother households, a drop in U.S. marriage rates, a general stagnation of working and middle class wages, and specifically, increased black American unemployment.
“So, the loss of manufacturing work since 1960 represents a steady decline in relatively high-paying jobs for less-educated workers,” recent research from economist Eric D. Gould has noted.
Fast-forward to the modern economy and the wage trend has been the opposite of what it was during the peak of manufacturing in the U.S. An Economic Policy Institute study found this year that been 2009 and 2015, the top one percent of American families earned about 26 times as much income as the bottom 99 percent of Americans.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder .
Record high income in 2017 for top one percent of wage earners in US In 2017, the top one percent of US wage earners received their highest paychecks ever, according to a report by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).
Based on newly released data from the Social Security Administration, the EPI shows that the top one percent of the population saw their paychecks increase by 3.7 percent in 2017—a rate nearly quadruple the bottom 90 percent of the population. The growth was driven by the top 0.1 percent, which includes many CEOs and corporate executives, whose pay increased eight percent and averaged $2,757,000 last year.
The EPI report is only the latest exposure of the gaping inequality between the vast majority of the population and the modern-day aristocracy that rules over them.
The EPI shows that the bottom 90 percent of wage earners have increased their pay by 22.2 percent between 1979 and 2017. Today, this bottom 90 percent makes an average of just $36,182 a year, which is eaten up by the cost of housing and the growing burden of education, health care, and retirement.
Meanwhile, the top one percent has increased its wages by 157 percent during this same period, a rate seven times faster than the other group. This top segment makes an average of $718,766 a year. Those in-between, the 90th to 99th percentile, have increased their wages by 57.4 percent. They now make an average of $152,476 a year—more than four times the bottom 90 percent.
Graph from the Economic Policy Institute
Decades of decaying capitalism have led to this accelerating divide. While the rich accumulate wealth with no restriction, workers’ wages and benefits have been under increasing attack. In 1979, 90 percent of the population took in 70 percent of the nation’s income. But, by 2017, that fell to only 61 percent.
Even more, while the bottom 90 percent of the population may take in 61 percent of the wages, large sections of the workforce today barely pull in any income at all. For example, Social Security Administration data found that the bottom 54 percent of wage earners in the United States, 89.5 million people, make an average of just $15,100 a year. This 54 percent of the population earns only 17 percent of all wages paid in America.
However unequal, these wage inequalities still do not fully present the divide between rich and poor. The ultra-wealthy derive their wealth not primarily from wages, but from assets and equities—principally from the stock market. While the bottom 90 percent of the population made 61 percent of the wages in 2017, they owned even less, just 27 percent of the wealth (according to the World Inequality Report 2018 by Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez, and Gabriel Zucman).
The massive increase in the value of the stock market, which only a small segment of the population participates in, means that the top 10 percent of the population controls 73 percent of all wealth in the United States. Just three men—Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffet and Bill Gates—had more wealth than the bottom half of America combined last year.
Wages are so low in the United States that roughly half of the population falls deeper into debt every year. A Reuters report from July found that the pretax net income (that is, income minus expense) of the bottom 40 percent of the population was an average of negative $11,660. Even the middle quintile of the population, the 40th to 60th percentile, breaks even with an average of only $2,836 a year.
As the Social Security Administration numbers show, 67.4 percent of the population made less than the average wage, $48,250 a year in 2017, a sum that is inadequate to support a family in many cities—especially, with high housing costs, health care, education, and retirement factored in.
For the ruling class, though, workers’ wages are already too much. The volatility of the stock market and the deep fear that the current bull market will collapse has made politicians and businessmen anxious of any sign of wage increases.
In August, wages in the US rose just 0.2 percent above the inflation rate, the highest in nine years. Though the increase was tiny, it was enough to encourage the Federal Reserve to increase the interest rate past two percent for the first time since 2008. Raising interest rates helps to depress workers’ wages by lowering borrowing and spending. As the Financial Times noted, stopping wage growth was “central” to the Federal Reserve’s move.
Further analysis of the Social Security Administration data shows that in 2017, 147,754 people reported wages of 1 million dollars or more—roughly, the top 0.05 percent. Their combined total income of $372 billion could pay for the US federal education budget five times over.
These wages, however large, still pale in comparison to the money the ultra-rich acquire from the stock market. For example, share buybacks and dividend payments, a way of funneling money to shareholders, will eclipse $1 trillion this year.
Whatever the immediate source, the wealth of the rich derives from the great mass of people who do the actual work. Across the United States and around the world, workers, young people, and students have entered into struggle this year over pay, education, health care, immigration, war and democratic rights. This growing movement of the working class must set as its aim confiscating the wealth and power of this tiny parasitic oligarchy. Society’s wealth must be democratically controlled by those who produce it.
THE STAGGERING ECONOMIC INEQUALITY UNDER OBAMA'S ADMINISTRATION SERVING THE BILLIONAIRE CLASS.
THE ENTIRE REASON BEHIND AMNESTY IS TO KEEP WAGES DEPRESSED AND PASS ALONG THE REAL COST OF "CHEAP" MEXICAN LABOR TO THE AMERICAN MIDDLE CLASS.
AND IT'S WORKING!
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS
“Calling income and wealth inequality the "great moral issue of our time," Sanders laid out a sweeping, almost unimaginably expensive program to transfer wealth from the richest Americans to the poor and middle class. A $1 trillion public works program to create "13 million good-paying jobs." A $15-an-hour federal minimum wage. "Pay equity" for women. Paid sick leave and vacation for everyone. Higher taxes on the wealthy. Free tuition at all public colleges and universities. A Medicare-for-all single-payer health care system. Expanded Social Security benefits. Universal pre-K.” WASHINGTON EXAMINER
YOU THOUGHT OBAMA INVITED OBAMANOMICS and started the assault on the American middle-class?
NOPE!
“By the time of Bill Clinton’s election in 1992, the Democratic Party had completely repudiated its association with the reforms of the New Deal and Great Society periods. Clinton gutted welfare programs to provide an ample supply of cheap labor for the rich (WHICH NOW MEANS OPEN BORDERS AND NO E-VERIFY!), including a growing layer of black capitalists, and passed the 1994 Federal Crime Bill, with its notorious “three strikes” provision that has helped create the largest prison population in the world.”
Clinton Foundation Put On Watch List Of Suspicious ‘Charities’
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2015/04/charity-navigator-clinton-foundation.htm l
Millionaires projected to own 46 percent of global private wealth by 2019
OBAMA: SERVANT OF THE 1%
Richest one percent controls nearly half of global wealth
The richest one percent of the world’s population now controls 48.2 percent of global wealth, up from 46 percent last year.
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2014/10/how-barack-obama-and-his-crony.html
The report found that the growth of global inequality has accelerated sharply since the 2008 financial crisis, as the values of financial assets have soared while wages have stagnated and declined.
Millionaires projected to own 46 percent of global private wealth by 2019 Households with more than a million (US) dollars in private wealth are projected to own 46 percent of global private wealth in 2019 according to a new report by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG).
This large percentage, however, only includes cash, savings, money market funds and listed securities held through managed investments—collectively known as “private wealth.” It leaves out businesses, residences and luxury goods, which comprise a substantial portion of the rich’s net worth.
At the end of 2014, millionaire households owned about 41 percent of global private wealth, according to BCG. This means that collectively these 17 million households owned roughly $67.24 trillion in liquid assets, or about $4 million per household.
In total, the world added $17.5 trillion of new private wealth between 2013 and 2014. The report notes that nearly three quarters of all these gains came from previously existing wealth. In other words, the vast majority of money gained has been due to pre-existing assets increasing in value—not the creation of new material things.
This trend is the result of the massive infusions of cheap credit into the financial markets by central banks. The policy of “quantitative easing” has led to a dramatic expansion of the stock market even while global economic growth has slumped.
While the wealth of the rich is growing at a breakneck pace, there is a stratification of growth within the super wealthy, skewed towards the very top.
In 2014, those with over $100 million in private wealth saw their wealth increase 11 percent in one year alone. Collectively, these households owned $10 trillion in 2014, 6 percent of the world’s private wealth. According to the report, “This top segment is expected to be the fastest growing, in both the number of households and total wealth.” They are expected to see 12 percent compound growth on their wealth in the next five years.
Those families with wealth between $20 and $100 million also rose substantially in 2014—seeing a 34 percent increase in their wealth in twelve short months. They now own $9 trillion. In five years they will surpass $14 trillion according to the report.
Coming in last in the “high net worth” population are those with between $1 million and $20 million in private wealth. These households are expected to see their wealth grow by 7.2 percent each year, going from $49 trillion to $70.1 trillion dollars, several percentage points below the highest bracket’s 12 percent growth rate.
The gains in private wealth of the ultra-rich stand in sharp contrast to the experience of billions of people around the globe. While wealth accumulation has sharply sped up for the ultra-wealthy, the vast majority of people have not even begun to recover from the past recession.
An Oxfam report from January, for example, shows that the bottom 99 percent of the world’s population went from having about 56 percent of the world’s wealth in 2010 to having 52 percent of it in 2014. Meanwhile the top 1 percent saw its wealth rise from 44 to 48 percent of the world’s wealth.
In 2014 the Russell Sage Foundation found that between 2003 and 2013, the median household net worth of those in the United States fell from $87,992 to $56,335—a drop of 36 percent. While the rich also saw their wealth drop during the recession, they are more than making that money back. Between 2009 and 2012, 95 percent of all the income gains in the US went to the top 1 percent. This is the most distorted post-recession income gain on record.
As the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has noted, in the United States “between 2007 and 2013, net wealth fell on average 2.3 percent, but it fell ten-times more (26 percent) for those at the bottom 20 percent of the distribution.” The 2015 report concludes that “low-income households have not benefited at all from income growth.”
Another report by Knight Frank , looks at those with wealth exceeding $30 million. The report notes that in 2014 these 172,850 ultra-high-net-worth individuals increased their collective wealth by $700 billion. Their total wealth now rests at $20.8 trillion.
The report also draws attention to the disconnection between the rich and the actual economy. It states that the growth of this ultra-wealthy population “came despite weaker-than-anticipated global economic growth. During 2014 the IMF was forced to downgrade its forecast increase for world output from 3.7 percent to 3.3 percent.”
DICK MORRIS:
On America’s First Family of Crime….. NO! Not the Bushes again!
Clinton global hucksterism – Selling out America like they sold out the Lincoln Bedroom.
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2015/06/-morris-how-bill-clinton-duped.html
HILLARY CLINTON: CRONY CLASS’ “Hope and Change” huckster’s successor!
“I serve Obama’s cronies first, illegals second and together we will loot the American middle-class to double our figures. It’s called BAILOUTS! Evita Peron Clinton
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2015/06/hillary-clinton-successor-to-hope-and.html
At this point, Clinton is the choice of most multimillionaires to be the next occupant of the White House. A recent CNBC poll of 750 millionaires found 53 percent support for Clinton in a contest with Republican Jeb Bush, 14 points better than Obama’s showing in the 2012 election with the same group.
Sen. Bernie Sanders – America’s answer to Wall Street’s looting, the war on the American middle-class and jobs for legals!
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2015/06/sen-bernie-sanders-americas-only-answer.html
“At this point, Clinton is the choice of most multimillionaires to be the next occupant of the White House. A recent CNBC poll of 750 millionaires found 53 percent support for Clinton in a contest with Republican Jeb Bush, 14 points better than Obama’s showing in the 2012 election with the same group.”
THE CRONY CLASS:
OBAMACLINTONOMICS was created by BILLARY CLINTON!
Income inequality grows FOUR TIMES FASTER under Obama than Bush.
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2014/12/obamanomics-at-work-depressed-wages-and.html
“By the time of Bill Clinton’s election in 1992, the Democratic Party had completely repudiated its association with the reforms of the New Deal and Great Society periods. Clinton gutted welfare programs to provide an ample supply of cheap labor for the rich (WHICH NOW MEANS OPEN BORDERS AND NO E-VERIFY!), including a growing layer of black capitalists, and passed the 1994 Federal Crime Bill, with its notorious “three strikes” provision that has helped create the largest prison population in the world.”
“Calling income and wealth inequality the "great moral issue of our time," Sanders laid out a sweeping, almost unimaginably expensive program to transfer wealth from the richest Americans to the poor and middle class. A $1 trillion public works program to create "13 million good-paying jobs." A $15-an-hour federal minimum wage. "Pay equity" for women. Paid sick leave and vacation for everyone. Higher taxes on the wealthy. Free tuition at all public colleges and universities. A Medicare-for-all single-payer health care system. Expanded Social Security benefits. Universal pre-K.” WASHINGTON EXAMINER
OBAMA’S WALL STREET and the LOOTING of AMERICA – SECOND TERM
The corporate cash hoard has likewise reached a new record, hitting an estimated $1.79 trillion in the fourth quarter of last year, up from $1.77 trillion in the previous quarter. Instead of investing the money, however, companies are using it to buy back their own stock and pay out record dividends.
Megan McArdle Discusses How America's Elites Are Rigging the Rules - Newsweek/The Daily Beast special correspondent Megan McArdle joins Scott Rasmussen for a discussion on America's new Mandarin class.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/most_recent_videos/2013_03/megan_mcardle_discusses_how_america_s_elites_are_rigging_the_rules
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2013/03/obamas-wall-street-and-looting-of.html
PATRICK BUCHANAN: OBAMA’S ASSAULT ON AMERICA BEGINS AT OUR BORDERS
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2015/06/patrick-j-buchanan-when-obama-turned.html
WHO REALLY PAYS FOR THE CRIMES OF OBAMA’S CRONY DONORS???
LAST WEEK BARACK OBAMA CELEBRATED FIVE YEARS OF THE LOOTING BY HIS WALL STREET BANKSTERS… now it’s back to cutting social programs to pay for all that rape by the 1% he represents. The following week it will be back to the AMNESTY HOAX to legalize Mexico’s looting of America and make it legal that Mexicans get our jobs first… they already do!
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2013/09/obamas-crony-capitalism-last-week-obama.html
As in previous budget crises under the Obama administration, the events are being stage-managed by the two corporate-controlled parties to give the illusion of partisan gridlock and confrontation over principles—in this case, whether to go forward with the implementation of the Obama health care program—while behind the scenes all factions within the ruling elite agree that massive cuts must be carried through in basic federal social programs.
OBAMA’S CRONY CAPITALISM – A NATION RULED BY CRIMINAL WALL STREET BANKSTERS AND OBAMA DONORS
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2013/05/pritzker-obama-adds-to-his-harem-of.html
GET THIS BOOK
Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies
by Michelle Malkin
In her shocking new book, Malkin digs deep into the records of President Obama's staff, revealing corrupt dealings, questionable pasts, and abuses of power throughout his administration.
PATRICK BUCHANAN
After Obama has completely destroyed the American economy, handed millions of jobs to illegals and billions of dollars in welfare to illegals…. BUT WHAT COMES NEXT?
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2015/05/patrick-buchanan-when-obama-bankrupted.html
OBAMANOMICS: IS IT WORKING???
Millionaires projected to own 46 percent of global private wealth by 2019 By Gabriel Black 18 June 2015 Households with more than a million (US) dollars in private wealth are projected to own 46 percent of global private wealth in 2019 according to a new report by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG).
This large percentage, however, only includes cash, savings, money market funds and listed securities held through managed investments—collectively known as “private wealth.” It leaves out businesses, residences and luxury goods, which comprise a substantial portion of the rich’s net worth.
At the end of 2014, millionaire households owned about 41 percent of global private wealth, according to BCG. This means that collectively these 17 million households owned roughly $67.24 trillion in liquid assets, or about $4 million per household.
In total, the world added $17.5 trillion of new private wealth between 2013 and 2014. The report notes that nearly three quarters of all these gains came from previously existing wealth. In other words, the vast majority of money gained has been due to pre-existing assets increasing in value—not the creation of new material things.
This trend is the result of the massive infusions of cheap credit into the financial markets by central banks. The policy of “quantitative easing” has led to a dramatic expansion of the stock market even while global economic growth has slumped.
While the wealth of the rich is growing at a breakneck pace, there is a stratification of growth within the super wealthy, skewed towards the very top.
In 2014, those with over $100 million in private wealth saw their wealth increase 11 percent in one year alone. Collectively, these households owned $10 trillion in 2014, 6 percent of the world’s private wealth. According to the report, “This top segment is expected to be the fastest growing, in both the number of households and total wealth.” They are expected to see 12 percent compound growth on their wealth in the next five years.
Those families with wealth between $20 and $100 million also rose substantially in 2014—seeing a 34 percent increase in their wealth in twelve short months. They now own $9 trillion. In five years they will surpass $14 trillion according to the report.
Coming in last in the “high net worth” population are those with between $1 million and $20 million in private wealth. These households are expected to see their wealth grow by 7.2 percent each year, going from $49 trillion to $70.1 trillion dollars, several percentage points below the highest bracket’s 12 percent growth rate.
The gains in private wealth of the ultra-rich stand in sharp contrast to the experience of billions of people around the globe. While wealth accumulation has sharply sped up for the ultra-wealthy, the vast majority of people have not even begun to recover from the past recession.
An Oxfam report from January, for example, shows that the bottom 99 percent of the world’s population went from having about 56 percent of the world’s wealth in 2010 to having 52 percent of it in 2014. Meanwhile the top 1 percent saw its wealth rise from 44 to 48 percent of the world’s wealth.
In 2014 the Russell Sage Foundation found that between 2003 and 2013, the median household net worth of those in the United States fell from $87,992 to $56,335—a drop of 36 percent. While the rich also saw their wealth drop during the recession, they are more than making that money back. Between 2009 and 2012, 95 percent of all the income gains in the US went to the top 1 percent. This is the most distorted post-recession income gain on record.
As the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has noted, in the United States “between 2007 and 2013, net wealth fell on average 2.3 percent, but it fell ten-times more (26 percent) for those at the bottom 20 percent of the distribution.” The 2015 report concludes that “low-income households have not benefited at all from income growth.”
Another report by Knight Frank , looks at those with wealth exceeding $30 million. The report notes that in 2014 these 172,850 ultra-high-net-worth individuals increased their collective wealth by $700 billion. Their total wealth now rests at $20.8 trillion.
The report also draws attention to the disconnection between the rich and the actual economy. It states that the growth of this ultra-wealthy population “came despite weaker-than-anticipated global economic growth. During 2014 the IMF was forced to downgrade its forecast increase for world output from 3.7 percent to 3.3 percent.”
THE CRONY CLASS:
OBAMACLINTONOMICS was created by BILLARY CLINTON!
Income inequality grows FOUR TIMES FASTER under Obama than Bush.
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2014/12/obamanomics-at-work-depressed-wages-and.html
“By the time of Bill Clinton’s election in 1992, the Democratic Party had completely repudiated its association with the reforms of the New Deal and Great Society periods. Clinton gutted welfare programs to provide an ample supply of cheap labor for the rich (WHICH NOW MEANS OPEN BORDERS AND NO E-VERIFY!), including a growing layer of black capitalists, and passed the 1994 Federal Crime Bill, with its notorious “three strikes” provision that has helped create the largest prison population in the world.”
“Calling income and wealth inequality the "great moral issue of our time," Sanders laid out a sweeping, almost unimaginably expensive program to transfer wealth from the richest Americans to the poor and middle class. A $1 trillion public works program to create "13 million good-paying jobs." A $15-an-hour federal minimum wage. "Pay equity" for women. Paid sick leave and vacation for everyone. Higher taxes on the wealthy. Free tuition at all public colleges and universities. A Medicare-for-all single-payer health care system. Expanded Social Security benefits. Universal pre-K.” WASHINGTON EXAMINER
OBAMA’S WALL STREET and the LOOTING of AMERICA – SECOND TERM
The corporate cash hoard has likewise reached a new record, hitting an estimated $1.79 trillion in the fourth quarter of last year, up from $1.77 trillion in the previous quarter. Instead of investing the money, however, companies are using it to buy back their own stock and pay out record dividends.
Megan McArdle Discusses How America's Elites Are Rigging the Rules - Newsweek/The Daily Beast special correspondent Megan McArdle joins Scott Rasmussen for a discussion on America's new Mandarin class.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/most_recent_videos/2013_03/megan_mcardle_discusses_how_america_s_elites_are_rigging_the_rules
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2013/03/obamas-wall-street-and-looting-of.html
POLL: MOST INCOMPETENT AND DISHONEST PRESIDENT SINCE…. Well, isn’t Obama merely Bush’s THIRD and FOURTH TERMS??
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2014/07/poll-obama-worst-president-since-wwii.html
OBAMA’S CRONY CAPITALISM
A NATION RULED BY CRIMINAL WALL STREET BANKSTERS AND OBAMA DONORS
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2013/05/pritzker-obama-adds-to-his-harem-of.html
PATRICK BUCHANAN
After Obama has completely destroyed the American economy, handed millions of jobs to illegals and billions of dollars in welfare to illegals…. BUT WHAT COMES NEXT?
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2015/05/patrick-buchanan-when-obama-bankrupted.html
OBAMANOMICS: IS IT WORKING???
Millionaires projected to own 46 percent of global private wealth by 2019
By Gabriel Black 18 June 2015 Households with more than a million (US) dollars in private wealth are projected to own 46 percent of global private wealth in 2019 according to a new report by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG).
This large percentage, however, only includes cash, savings, money market funds and listed securities held through managed investments—collectively known as “private wealth.” It leaves out businesses, residences and luxury goods, which comprise a substantial portion of the rich’s net worth.
At the end of 2014, millionaire households owned about 41 percent of global private wealth, according to BCG. This means that collectively these 17 million households owned roughly $67.24 trillion in liquid assets, or about $4 million per household.
In total, the world added $17.5 trillion of new private wealth between 2013 and 2014. The report notes that nearly three quarters of all these gains came from previously existing wealth. In other words, the vast majority of money gained has been due to pre-existing assets increasing in value—not the creation of new material things.
This trend is the result of the massive infusions of cheap credit into the financial markets by central banks. The policy of “quantitative easing” has led to a dramatic expansion of the stock market even while global economic growth has slumped.
While the wealth of the rich is growing at a breakneck pace, there is a stratification of growth within the super wealthy, skewed towards the very top.
In 2014, those with over $100 million in private wealth saw their wealth increase 11 percent in one year alone. Collectively, these households owned $10 trillion in 2014, 6 percent of the world’s private wealth. According to the report, “This top segment is expected to be the fastest growing, in both the number of households and total wealth.” They are expected to see 12 percent compound growth on their wealth in the next five years.
Those families with wealth between $20 and $100 million also rose substantially in 2014—seeing a 34 percent increase in their wealth in twelve short months. They now own $9 trillion. In five years they will surpass $14 trillion according to the report.
Coming in last in the “high net worth” population are those with between $1 million and $20 million in private wealth. These households are expected to see their wealth grow by 7.2 percent each year, going from $49 trillion to $70.1 trillion dollars, several percentage points below the highest bracket’s 12 percent growth rate.
The gains in private wealth of the ultra-rich stand in sharp contrast to the experience of billions of people around the globe. While wealth accumulation has sharply sped up for the ultra-wealthy, the vast majority of people have not even begun to recover from the past recession.
An Oxfam report from January, for example, shows that the bottom 99 percent of the world’s population went from having about 56 percent of the world’s wealth in 2010 to having 52 percent of it in 2014. Meanwhile the top 1 percent saw its wealth rise from 44 to 48 percent of the world’s wealth.
In 2014 the Russell Sage Foundation found that between 2003 and 2013, the median household net worth of those in the United States fell from $87,992 to $56,335—a drop of 36 percent. While the rich also saw their wealth drop during the recession, they are more than making that money back. Between 2009 and 2012, 95 percent of all the income gains in the US went to the top 1 percent. This is the most distorted post-recession income gain on record.
As the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has noted, in the United States “between 2007 and 2013, net wealth fell on average 2.3 percent, but it fell ten-times more (26 percent) for those at the bottom 20 percent of the distribution.” The 2015 report concludes that “low-income households have not benefited at all from income growth.”
Another report by Knight Frank , looks at those with wealth exceeding $30 million. The report notes that in 2014 these 172,850 ultra-high-net-worth individuals increased their collective wealth by $700 billion. Their total wealth now rests at $20.8 trillion.
The report also draws attention to the disconnection between the rich and the actual economy. It states that the growth of this ultra-wealthy population “came despite weaker-than-anticipated global economic growth. During 2014 the IMF was forced to downgrade its forecast increase for world output from 3.7 percent to 3.3 percent.”
OBAMA-CLINTONomics: the never end war on the American middle-class. But we still get the tax bills for the looting of their Wall Street cronies and their bailouts and billions for Mexico’s welfare state in our borders.
While the wealth of the rich is growing at a breakneck pace, there is a stratification of growth within the super wealthy, skewed towards the very top .
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2015/06/obama-clintonomics-at-work-millionaires.html
In 2014, those with over $100 million in private wealth saw their wealth increase 11 percent in one year alone. Collectively, these households owned $10 trillion in 2014, 6 percent of the world’s private wealth. According to the report, “This top segment is expected to be the fastest growing, in both the number of households and total wealth.” They are expected to see 12 percent compound growth on their wealth in the next five years.
In 2014 the Russell Sage Foundation found that between
2003 and 2013, the median household net worth of those in
the United States fell from $87,992 to $56,335—a drop of 36
percent. While the rich also saw their wealth drop during the
recession, they are more than making that money back.
Between 2009 and 2012, 95 percent of all the income gains in
the US went to the top 1 percent. This is the most distorted
post-recession income gain on record.
INCOME PLUMMETS UNDER OBAMA AND HIS WALL STREET CRONIES
collapse of household income in the US… STILL BILLIONS IN WELFARE HANDED TO ILLEGALS… they already get our jobs and are voting for more!
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2014/09/soaring-poverty-in-america-good-time-to.html
INCOME PLUMMETS UNDER OBAMA… most jobs go to illegals.
AS HIS CRONY BANKSTERS CONTINUE TO LOOT, INCOMES PLUMMET FOR AMERICANS (LEGALS).
GOOD TIME FOR AMNESTY FOR MILLIONS OF LOOTING MEXICANS?
MORE HERE:
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2014/09/and-still-democrat-party-wants-millions.html
“The yearly income of a typical US household dropped by a massive 12 percent, or $6,400, in the six years between 2007 and 2013. This is just one of the findings of the 2013 Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances released Thursday, which documents a sharp decline in working class living standards and a further concentration of wealth in the hands of the rich and the super-rich.”
"During the month, some 432,000 people in the US gave up looking for a job." EVEN AS JEB BUSH, HILLARY CLINTON and BERNIE SANDERS PREACH AMNESTY! AMNESTY! AMNESTY! "The American phenomenon of record stock values fueling an ever greater concentration of wealth at the very top of society, while the economy is starved of productive investment, the social infrastructure crumbles, and working class living standards are driven down by entrenched unemployment, wage-cutting and government austerity policies, is part of a broader global process." HILLARY CLINTON'S BIGGEST DONORS ARE OBAMA'S CRIMINAL CRONY BANKSTERS! "A defining expression of this crisis is the dominance of financial speculation and parasitism, to the point where a narrow international financial aristocracy plunders society’s resources in order to further enrich itself." Federal Reserve documents stagnant state of US economy
Federal Reserve documents stagnant state of US economy By Barry Grey 21 July 2015 The US Federal Reserve Board last week released its semiannual Monetary Policy Report to Congress, providing an assessment of the state of the American economy and outlining the central bank’s monetary policy going forward. The report, along with Fed Chair Janet Yellen’s testimony before both the House of Representatives and the Senate, as well as a speech by Yellen the previous week in Cleveland, present a grim picture of the reality behind the official talk of economic “recovery.” In her prepared remarks to Congress last Wednesday and Thursday, Yellen said, “Looking forward, prospects are favorable for further improvement in the US labor market and the economy more broadly.” She reiterated her assurances that while the Fed would likely begin to raise its benchmark federal funds interest rate later this year from the 0.0 to 0.25 percent level it has maintained since shortly after the 2008 financial crash, it would do so only slowly and gradually, keeping short-term rates well below historically normal levels for an indefinite period. This was an expected, but nevertheless welcome, signal to the American financial elite, which has enjoyed a spectacular rise in corporate profits, stock values and personal wealth since 2009 thanks to the flood of virtually free money provided by the Fed. "But as Yellen’s remarks and the Fed report indicate, the explosion of asset values and wealth accumulation at the very top of the economic ladder has occurred alongside an intractable and continuing slump in the real economy." In her prepared testimony to the House Financial Services Committee and the Senate Banking Committee, Yellen noted the following features of the performance of the US economy over the first six months of 2015: * A sharp decline in the rate of economic growth as compared to 2014, including an actual contraction in the first quarter of the year. * A substantial slackening (19 percent) in average monthly job-creation, from 260,000 last year to 210,000 thus far in 2015. * Declines in domestic spending and industrial production. In her July 10 speech to the City Club of Cleveland, Yellen cited an even longer list of negative indices, including: * Growth in real gross domestic product (GDP) since the official beginning of the recovery in June, 2009 has averaged a mere 2.25 percent per year, a full one percentage point less than the average rate over the 25 years preceding what Yellen called the “Great Recession.” * While manufacturing employment nationwide has increased by about 850,000 since the end of 2009, there are still almost 1.5 million fewer manufacturing jobs than just before the recession. * Real GDP and industrial production both declined in the first quarter of this year. Industrial production continued to fall in April and May. * Residential construction (despite extremely low mortgage rates by historical standards) has remained “quote soft.” * Productivity growth has been “weak,” largely because “Business owners and managers… have not substantially increased their capital expenditures,” and “Businesses are holding large amounts of cash on their balance sheets.” * Reflecting the general stagnation and even slump in the real economy, core inflation rose by only 1.2 percent over the past 12 months. The Monetary Policy Report issued by the Fed includes facts that are, if anything, even more alarming, including: * “Labor productivity in the business sector is reported to have declined in both the fourth quarter of 2014 and the first quarter of 2015.” * “Exports fell markedly in the first quarter, held back by lackluster growth abroad.” * “Overall construction activity remains well below its pre-recession levels.” * “Since the recession began, the gains in… nominal compensation [workers’ wages and benefits] have fallen well short of their pre-recession averages, and growth of real compensation has fallen short of productivity growth over much of this period.” * “Overall business investment has turned down as investment in the energy sector has plunged. Business investment fell at an annual rate of 2 percent in first quarter… Business outlays for structures outside of the energy sector also declined in the first quarter…” The report incorporates the Fed’s projections for US economic growth, published following the June meeting of the central bank’s policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee. They include a downward revision of the projection for 2015 to 1.8 percent-2.0 percent from the March projection of 2.3 percent to 2.7 percent. That the US economy continues to stagnate and even contract is indicated by two surveys released last week while Yellen was testifying before Congress. The Fed reported that factory production failed to increase in June for the second straight month and output in the auto sector fell 3.7 percent. The Commerce Department reported that retail sales unexpectedly fell in June, declining by 0.3 percent. These statistics follow the employment report for June, which showed that the share of the US working-age population either employed or actively looking for work, known as the labor force participation rate, fell to 62.6 percent, its lowest level in 38 years. During the month, some 432,000 people in the US gave up looking for a job. The disastrous figures on business investment are perhaps the most telling indicators of the underlying crisis of the capitalist system. The Fed report attributes the sharp decline so far this year primarily to the dramatic fall in oil prices and resulting contraction in investment and construction in the energy sector. But the plunge in oil prices is itself a symptom of a general slowdown in the world economy. Moreover, a dramatic decline in productive investment is common to all of the major industrialized economies of Europe and North America. In its World Economic Outlook of last April, the International Monetary Fund for the first time since the 2008 financial crisis acknowledged that there was no prospect for an early return to pre-recession levels of economic growth, linking this bleak prognosis to a general and pronounced decline in productive investment. The American phenomenon of record stock values fueling an ever greater concentration of wealth at the very top of society, while the economy is starved of productive investment, the social infrastructure crumbles, and working class living standards are driven down by entrenched unemployment, wage-cutting and government austerity policies, is part of a broader global process. The economic crisis in the US and internationally is not simply a conjunctural downturn. It is a systemic crisis of global capitalism, centered in the US. A defining expression of this crisis is the dominance of financial speculation and parasitism, to the point where a narrow international financial aristocracy plunders society’s resources in order to further enrich itself. While the economy is starved of productive investment, entirely parasitic and socially destructive activities such as stock buybacks, dividend hikes and mergers and acquisitions return to pre-crash levels and head for new heights. US corporations have spent more on stock buybacks so far this year than on factories and equipment. The intractable nature of this crisis, within the framework of capitalism, is underscored by the IMF’s updated World Economic Outlook, released earlier this month, which projects that 2015 will be the worst year for economic growth since the height of the recession in 2009.
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