Why the Corporate and Political Elite Insist Population Growth Is Good; or Is the US Getting Set to Enter a Great Depression?

The answer to the title above is simple; constant population growth equals constantly growing corporate profits. That’s not necessarily a good thing for the 99 percent.

The US economy is dominated by a Ponzi Scheme known as Wall Street. As corporate earnings rise, stock prices generally rise. If aggregate corporate profits go down, as they always must in time, then that 15,000+ value we see today with the Dow Jones Industrials can drop to 8,000 or less, as it did during the Great Recession.

Now imagine what would happen if the economy never came out of the Great Recession, like during the Great Depression. In October 1929, the Dow Jones was close to 400, up from less than 100 in 1921. The Depression hit that month, the economy entered into a sustained decline, the Dow dropped and dropped until it was less than 50 in October 1932. That’s a lot of speculative profits that were wiped out. The Dow began climbing with the election of FDR on November 8, 1932. But what if FDR didn’t win and the US continued down the same path? There’s a good chance the Dow would’ve dropped to a value of zero.

One way to avert such a calamity is to have constantly increasing population. As population grows, there are more people to feed, which means constantly growing demand for goods and services, which helps corporate profits rise, which keeps the Dow growing. The government will even feed and house tens of millions of people in order to keep demand up.

If, however, the US population was to decline, especially in the long-run, so too would the demand for goods and services. That means corporate profits would begin a long term drop. The financial markets would plummet in the long run. Paper profits that have grown over decades would vanish like smoke.

The birth rates of US citizens began to slow a few decades ago, and to compensate, your government opened the floodgates of immigration to compensate for that. Of course, there were other factors for doing this, as well. More immigrants meant a downward push on wage growth. The difference between what wages would’ve been in the absence of higher immigration and what they became with greater immigration went into the already fat wallets of the super rich via higher corporate profits, share prices and rising dividends.

This is not to suggest that immigration is always a bad thing, especially if there is a rising tide of prosperity for all. However, immigration during a time when there has been a massive redistribution of income and wealth flowing from the 99 to the 1 percent probably isn’t a good thing for the 99 percent. But it is good for Wall Street and the 1 percent, and for the reasons cited above.

If population growth continues to slow, and last year it grew only 0.7 percent, and middle class income continues to stagnate, then the current record rise in the Dow Jones Industrials suggests it is a bubble caused by redistributing income from the 99 to the 1 percent.

In other words, it is possible the current pathetic economic expansion is ambling down a road that ends at a very steep cliff. This brings us to a question.

Was the Great Recession just a blip on the road to an even greater Depression somewhere down the road a few years from now?

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Barack Obama’s War Against the Middle Class: Rising trade deficits with Japan illustrate problem with proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership

From the Economic Policy Institute:

“The U.S. trade deficit with Japan has increased steadily over the past four years, reaching $79.9 billion in 2012, an increase of $13.4 billion (20.2 percent). Last month, the United States and Japan agreed on language that could allow Japan to join negotiations to enter the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a proposed free trade agreement with 10 other Asia-Pacific countries (a new round of negotiations on the TPP began in Singapore last week ).

Exports support U.S. jobs but the larger volume of imports displaces even more jobs. Trade deficits such as the one we have with Japan have cost the United States millions of jobs, most of them high-paying jobs in manufacturing. Signing trade deals is an ineffective way to create jobs, in large part because they usually result in higher trade deficits. One of the biggest causes of our trade deficits is currency manipulation, which acts as an artificial subsidy to other countries’ exports and a tax on U.S. exports. Japan has a history of currency manipulation, and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced that he intended to weaken the yen when he was elected in December. The yen has declined 11.9 percent since then.”

The US also has a trade deficit with China, but that’s not quite the truth. The US has a trade deficit with US corporations that do their manufacturing in China, such as Nike, Apple and Microsoft. The worse thing is that the Obama man may force US textile manufacturers to move their facilities to China, as well. On the other hand, it should be pointed out that there are plenty of US textile manufacturers in China, already.

The TPP is being negotiated by officials from the Obama administration. Obama’s policy preferences, like George W. Bush before him, have been to redistribute income and political power from the 99 to the 1 percent, or at least the slice of the 1 percent that Obama represents, such as the Crown Brothers of General Dynamics. That’s what the TPP is all about.

The TPP will off shore more US jobs and continue a deadly race to the bottom in order to support the Ponzi Scam known as Wall Street. That’s because US corporations must experience long-term rising share prices, which means profits must continually rise, more or less. And the best way for that to occur is if wage rates are reduced more and more. And so the TPP is an engine not only to get around the US Constitution (That’s another story), but also to depress wages and other compensation worldwide. So naturally Obama is aiming to destroy US textile jobs and redistribute the wages of the people who actually do the work to the 1 percent via higher corporate earnings, rising share prices and surging dividends.

Within the framework of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, the government of Vietnam is demanding “preferential rules of origin to use raw materials from China.” This includes yarn, thread and fabric.

Central American textile businesses are also worried that Vietnam will get more flexible terms to import its apparel into the US, such as an end to tariffs on apparel goods. In which case, some estimates suggest El Salvador alone will lose 200,000 textile jobs. These jobs are located in large part within Maquila zones, which are zones in which US companies are allowed to assemble goods and then export them duty free to the United States.

Once these zones were established, US corporations sent jobs to Central America. The difference between the old wages in the US and the new lower wages in Central America went into the pockets of corporate CEOs and rich shareholders. The people whose jobs were shipped away as part of the Democratic and Republican Party’s war against the 99 percent were lucky if they got unemployment insurance. The Central America Free Trade Treaty (CAFTA) did the same thing, only on a grander scale.

Nowadays, every year, the 1 percent legislatively steal about 32 percent of the income of the United States compared to about 7-8 percent thirty-two years ago. That means the 99 percent have less money to burn, which creates less jobs. And guess what else? The 1 percent destroy jobs by pressuring the government to enact more and more free trade treaties because they wipe out American jobs and redistribute the income from the lost jobs into their own pockets.

It just so happens that textile workers in the El Salvador Maquila zones earn .78 cents per hour, compared to .60 cents of their Vietnamese counterparts. However, the Maquila Zones in Central America have a cost advantage over their Vietnamese rivals since there are no tariffs for their products exported to the USA. If Vietnam is allowed to ship their apparel products into the US duty free, El Salvador will have a labor cost disadvantage vis-a-vis Vietnam.

Now here’s the real problem.

“U.S. textile manufacturers produce yarn, thread, and fabric for apparel, home furnishings, and for various industrial applications. In 2011, the U.S. textile industry generated $53 billion in
shipments and directly employed about 238,000 Americans, accounting for 2% of all U.S. factory jobs. Approximately one-third of U.S. textile production is exported, with the bulk of the exports
going to Western Hemisphere nations that are members of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) or the Central American-Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement
(CAFTA-DR), like El Salvador and Honduras.

Both free trade agreements provide that certain exports from member countries may enter the U.S. market duty-free only if they are made from textiles produced in the region. This has encouraged manufacturers in Mexico and Central America to use U.S.-made yarns and fabrics in apparel, home furnishings, and other products. Exports to the NAFTA and CAFTA-DR countries contributed to a U.S. trade surplus of $2.5 billion in yarns and fabrics in 2011.”

So the TPP has the potential to affect U.S. textile exporters in at least two ways. As mentioned earlier, it could enable Asian apparel producers, principally Vietnam, to export clothing to the United States duty-
free.” Roughly 40 percent of Nike’s products are produced in Vietnam. Guess what corporation is lobbying US politicians to support the TPP and eliminate the import duties from Vietnam?

“This (TPP) would eliminate much of the advantage now enjoyed by Western Hemisphere apparel producers in the U.S. market and, because Vietnamese manufacturers make little use of U.S.-made textiles,” will likely “reduce demand for U.S. textile exports,” killing US jobs, and redistributing income from the 99 to the 1 percent in the process. Second, it is possible the TPP will allow Western Hemisphere apparel manufacturers to use yarn and fabric made in any TPP member nations, such as China, which is where Vietnam gets its yarns and fabrics.”

In other words, Vietnamese apparel makers could wipe out El Salvador apparel makers, and that’s how Obama’s scam would destroy a couple of hundred thousand textile jobs in El Salvador. But this process would eliminate tens of thousands of US jobs in the textile industry, since the jobs in El Salvador are dependent on yarn, thread and fabric made in the USA.

In other words, Obama’s TPP scam is intended to make the 1 percent richer at the expense of the 99 percent, precisely because all free trade treaties are negotiated with this as the intended consequence. And this is just one of the income redistribution scams hidden within the negotiations of the TPP.

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What Did the Reagan and Bush Tax Cuts Do?

The Reagan and Bush tax cuts gave more money to the rich to buy even more politicians than they could before those tax cuts. The 1 percent purchased 80 percent of the Democratic Party, which they really didn’t need since they already owned the Republican Party. They’ve used their politicians to enact legislation that redistributes income from the 99 to the 1 percent.

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The Military Industrial Complex: Is it the biggest welfare program of them all?

The military-industry complex is not the biggest government welfare program of all time. It might be second, and like the biggest welfare program, the military-industrial complex is welfare for the rich, the 1 percent. Such corporations as General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin rely heavily on government spending to keep their profits soaring, their dividends rising and their share prices climbing. The 1 percent owns most of their shares.

That’s why the United States has a bloated military that is greater in size than the next nine largest military’s in the world combined, although some analysts suggest the US spends more on its military than the rest of the world combined. That’s likely.

At the peak of the US conquest of Iraq, the US had somewhere in the vicinity of 150,000 mercenaries earning over a $100,000 each. The government called these mercenaries “contractors,” as if they had been contracted to erect buildings. No, these were just mercenaries that had signed contracts to be US mercenaries. If you count these folks, it is likely the US spends more on its military than all other nations in the world.

Income redistribution from the 99 to the 1 percent. That’s what military spending is all about. Tax money, the blood of working Americans, government lies, they’re all redistributed to the rich.

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Who or What is Responsible for the Federal Deficits?

Was it tax cuts for the rich that caused the federal deficit? Was it Trickle down economics? Were free trade agreements the cause? Privatization schemes? Deregulation? No Child Left Behind? Okay, here’s the answer.

The deficits were caused by all of the above. They have redistributed income from the 99 to the 1 percent, destroyed the middle class, wiped out the economy, and began the process of turning the United States into the biggest banana republic of all time. Thank you Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, John Boehner, Ron Wyden and so many more.

All of these Wall Street drones and more continue to espouse policies that continue the process of denuding the American 99 percent of income and wealth by redistribution these things to their masters of the 1 percent.

Who is responsible for the federal deficits?

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The Right to Work means Redistributing Income Upward

The Right to Work means the Right to Work for Less

If wages drift down in Michigan because of the new Right-to-Work-for-Less law, the difference between the old higher wages and the new lower wages will be redistributed into the already fat wallets of the super-rich via higher corporate profits, share prices and dividends. Some of that income will be redistributed to Wall Street CEO’s via higher bonuses and greater fees for stocks and bonds traded. Some of the income will be redistributed into the already fat wallets of other corporate CEOs via pay hikes and bonuses. In other words, right to work for less laws redistribute income upward by pushing wages down.

That redistribution of income means higher poverty rates for the 99 percent.

There is also a redistribution of political power going on here. A labor union is a union of labor. A publicly traded limited liability corporation is a collective of rich person’s money. The owners of that money usually don’t have a clue as to what is being produced by their corporation, but whoever controls that money wields much more political power than any one labor union. Essentially, our democracy is being purchased by a series of communist collectives for rich people, otherwise known as corporations.

The Reagan and Bush tax opened the floodgates of rich people’s money into politics, something that could not be matched by the 99 percent. The ability of the 1 percent to form collectives is at the heart of this matter. The floodgates had been carefully built by FDR, Truman and Eisenhower. Now rich people are using their tax breaks and collectives to break what little political power remains with the 99 percent.

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The Student Loan Income Redistribution Scam: Is the Student Loan Market the New Subprime Disaster?

Student loan recipients are defaulting on their student loans in increasing numbers.

Student loans are a scam. Here’s why. Thirty plus years ago the folks on Wall Street figured out they could purchase student loans, and then issue bonds to rich investors that were backed by the student loans. The 1 percent own the vast majority of those bonds. As the government or students make payments on the loans, much of the payments are redistributed to the 1 percent as payments on those bonds.

It was a nice scam since the government guaranteed the loans, which means there is no risk in being a bonds backed by student loans. Think about it. Rich investors are earning money with zero risk. Worse yet, depending on your view point, the students take all the risk, since they have to to pay and pay, with no chance of going bankrupt and getting rid of this burden. They have become indentured servants to the 1 percent.

Wall Street pressured then President Ronald Reagan, as well as Republican and Democratic law-makers, to cut the amount of federal grants the government gave out to its citizens. That forced more members of the 99 percent to take out even more student loans.

This is how political power works and the Bush tax cuts works. Give the rich more money, they buy more politicians of both parties, like Wall Street Senator Ron Wyden, and then their political servants enact legislation that redistributes income from the 99 to the 1 percent.

Are Student Loans the New Subprime Disaster?

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Following Republican Economic Plans Will Do What?

Republicans want to cut the deficit while giving tax breaks to the rich. They want to cut social security benefits even though the Social Security Trust Fund has a $2.5 trillion surplus which collects $118 billion in interest per year. They want to hack away at unemployment benefits, Medicaid, Medicare and just about anything that helps the poor and middle class. All of this, they say with a strait face, so as to cut the deficit, which has always grown exponentially under Republican presidents since Ronald Reagan. Meanwhile, like Reagan, they think they can cut the programs that benefit the masses while increasing military spending that primarily benefits the 1 percent, and they want to give those same rich folks another tax cut that will, they claim, reduce the deficit. Unfortunately for Republicans, all of those tax reductions for the rich since Reagan destroyed jobs and created the economic wasteland we now have. They call this policy “austerity.” Europe tried it a few years ago. Look below to what’s happened to the European economy since the Europeans tried “austerity.” Look what happened to the USA since the USA under President’s Bush and Obama didn’t try “austerity.” The Republicans know austerity will tank the economy. That’s the only reason they want the austerity program. They want mass misery.

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Small Business Grew Twice As Fast Under Clinton Than Bush

The Bush tax cuts helped to wipe out the economy. The same is true of the Reagan tax cuts. There’s not a kernel of evidence anywhere that those tax reductions for the rich created a single net job. But there is growing evidence that they destroyed jobs, or at the least, weakened job growth. That’s because most of the investments of the rich from those cuts were used to purchase paper assets in the growing derivatives markets (which is about $500 trillion big), on buying politicians like Wall Street Senator Ron Wyden, and on destroying democracy for the 99 percent.

Wyden is a case in point. He never met an legislative income transfer scam from the 99 to the 1 percent go without his “yes” vote. He voted for Nafta, the South Korea free trade treaty and others. Those are income redistribution treaties. He knows this. Those treaties pave the way for US corporations to ship jobs overseas, among other devious things. The difference between the old wages and the new help to raise corporate profits, dividends and share prices. The 99 percent lost jobs, the 1 percent received the lost wages of those jobs. There went our tax base for schools, roads, bridges, fire and police, among other government services.

Clinton raised the top tax rate. That took some of the 1 percent’s money out of the political and derivatives markets and left jobs intact. The demand for goods and services expanded when the economy grew, thanks to those tax increases. That’s why small businesses grew twice as fast under Clinton as under Bush.

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Why Americans Feel No Better Off Than Four Years Ago

Although the US as a whole is doing better than when the Republican created economic collapse began four years ago, most Americans do not feel better off when it comes to their personal finances. There’s a reason for this. The rich have been stealing 93 percent of all income growth during these years. The rest of us are getting nothing but our jobs and incomes redistributed to the 1 percent via the policies of Obama and the policies put in place before the current president. So it’s impossible for us to feel better about our personal finances.

Click on the link below for more on this story.

Americans Feel No Better Off Than Four Years Ago–Pew Rearch Center

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