In to whose pockets did national income growth go to from 2009 to 2011?

In to whose pockets did national income growth go to from 2009 to 2011? The 1 percent, that’s who, via dividend growth, corporate profits and surging share prices.

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21,000 Affluent People Paid no income taxes last year and didn’t create a single job for anybody

The rich are making off like bandits because they are. The affluent have purchased enough legislation to ensure a constant redistribution of income from the 99 percent to themselves, they’ve bought tax breaks from legislators, free trade income redistribution treaties, income redistribution privatized government services, income redistribution deregulation, and you get the picture.

But here’s the more important thing. There’s not a schred of evidence that a single job has been created because of tax breaks for the rich. All the evidence points the other way; tax breaks for the rich destroys jobs. Think about thirty years of tax breaks for the affluent, and how many private sector jobs have been created because of them? Especially during the last twelve years? Try zero.

When the rich get tax breaks, that allows them to purchase the favors of legislators, which means income redistribution. The 99 percent has less and less money to buy stuff, which means layoffs, not job creation. The affluent have stolen 93 percent of total income growth in the USA for the last two years. That means the economy can’t grow jobs at any historically serious level because the 99 percent can’t buy goods and services since they’re only getting a teeny tiny slice of the income growth pie.

See related story

Big Paychecks and teeny tiny tax burdens

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Time Magazine: The Person of the Year is Us

Time Magazine has named the mass of “protesters” as the 2011 person of the year, although a mass of persons is clearly not a person. From a grammatical point of view, person is singular for people and the word people is plural for person.

Obviously, the corrupt corporate wing of the supreme court cannot possibly agreed with Time’s selection of their person of the year since the person Time has cited is not a business corporation, which the corporate wing of the supreme court thinks is a person. I don’t know why the corrupt wing of the court thinks that way. Perhaps they or their relatives are receiving money under the table. Who knows? Anyway, click on the link below for the full story of the person of the year.

The Person of the Year

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US growth revised down again for third quarter to 1.8%– Why the US Needs Population growth

The US economy grew at a slower pace than previously estimated in the three months to the end of September. Growth is supposedly good, but in reality, it’s only good if it is driven by productivity gains. US growth is mostly fueled by population gains and price growth. The corporate system is completely reliant on constantly growing profits to sustain itself, otherwise it would collapse. That is why the US government is always encouraging population growth. Over a decade ago, the population growth in the US virtually stagnated. That’s why the US government continues to encourage immigration despite a dearth of jobs. More people means more mouths to feed and bodies to clothe. That stimulates demand and increases corporate profits. It’s also why the government is always determined to understate the growth in prices. Higher prices means greater profits, which means more redistributing of wealth and income from the 99 to the 1 percent. Anyway, back to the revised third quarter growth issue.

Revised figures from the US Commerce Department show gross domestic product grew at an annual pace of 1.8% in the period, down from the previous estimate of 2% and first estimate of 2.5%.

“The downward revision was largely due to lower consumer expenditure than previously thought.” Obviously, we need more mouths to feed and bodies to clothe in order to redistribute income and wealth from the 99 percent to the one percent.

Separate figures showed a fall in weekly unemployment benefit claims. This is probably because most people who are going to lose their jobs have done so already. At least until the economy begins another downward move.

Initial claims for state benefits dropped 4,000 to a seasonally adjusted 364,000, the Labor Department said – the lowest level since April 2008.

Analysts stressed that the outlook for US economy had changed slightly since the third quarter.

“[The revised data] suggests the economy had less momentum going into the fourth quarter than we’d expected, but more recent reports suggest a stronger rate of growth for the fourth quarter, so that offsets the downward revision,” said Omer Esiner, an analyst at Commonwealth Foreign Exchange. Esiner’s statement shows one thing. He’s pretty stupid or ignorant.

“Jobless claims are a case in point. They continue to show an encouraging trend of declining claims. I think that reinforces the notion that the economy has strengthened in the fourth quarter.”

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Occupy London protesters and church in harmony at Christmas

Anti-capitalist protesters camped outside London’s St Paul’s Cathedral on Saturday prepared to ring in Christmas along with the church as previous squabbles were put firmly to one side.

Click here for the rest of the story

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Obama signs $915bn US spending bill into law

US President Barack Obama has signed into law a spending bill that Congress approved to keep the government running, the White House said.

Earlier on Saturday, the Senate had passed the $915 billion bill to fund most federal activities through next September and avert a government shutdown. It had cleared the House of Representatives on Friday.

A number of government agencies, including the Department of Defense, Environmental Protection Agency and Labor Department, faced the possibility of shutting down this weekend without the legislation to replenish their funding.

“This is spending money that also benefits families and businesses and the entire economy, and [the jobless aid is] a
lifeline that would have been lost for more than 2.5 million people in the first two months of next year if Congress had not acted,” Obama said on Saturday in brief remarks at the White House.

He urged Congress to move quickly when it returns from its winter recess to extend the tax cut for a full year, saying it would be “inexcusable” to allow the reduction to lapse.

“It should be a formality and hopefully it’s done with as little drama as possible when they get back in January,” Obama said.

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Rhododendron Bush Was Smarter Than Fox News: Global Warming Getting Worse and Speeding Up

A couple of weeks ago, my rhododendron bush told me global warming had accelerated during the last year when I saw she was swarming with buds. Fox News, of course, denied the existence of global warming. Guess what? Rhoddie knew what she was talking about and the Wall Street propagandists at Fox didn’t. A new report came out showing that Rhoddie was right again and Fox was wrong one more time. You can read it below. Also, if you’re interested in looking at the original report by Rhoddie, it can be found at The original interview with my rododendron bush. How it told me about global warming..

Story below by Agence France-Presse from Rawstory.com.

Harmful carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels made their biggest ever annual jump in 2010, according to the US Department of Energy’s latest world data released this week.

China led the way with a spike of 212 million metric tons of carbon in 2010 over 2009, compared to 59 million metric tons more from the United States and 48 million metric tons more from India in the same period.

“It’s big,” Tom Boden, director of the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center Environmental Sciences Division at the DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, told AFP in an interview.

“Our data go back to 1751, even before the Industrial Revolution. Never before have we seen a 500-million-metric-ton carbon increase in a single year,” he said.

The 512 million metric ton boost amounted to a near six percent rise between 2009 and 2010, going from 8.6 billion metric tons to 9.1 billion.

Large jumps in carbon emissions from burning coal and gas were visible in China, the United States and India, the world’s top three polluters, according to the data which was posted online this week by the Oak Ridge Lab.

Significant spikes were also seen in Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Russia, Poland and Kazakhstan.

Some countries, like Switzerland, Azerbaijan, Slovakia, Spain, New Zealand and Pakistan actually showed slight declines from 2009 to 2010, but those nations were uncommon. Much of Europe showed a moderate uptick.

The pollution measurements could indicate economic recovery from the global recession of 2007-2008, according to Boden.

“At least from an energy consumption standpoint, companies were back to manufacturing levels that rivaled pre-2008 levels, people were traveling again so emissions from the transportation sector rivaled those of pre-2008,” he said.

But the data also raised concerns about the health of the environment.

“This is very bad news,” said John Abraham, associate professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Engineering in Minnesota.

“These results show that it will be harder to make the tough cuts to emissions if we are to head off a climate crisis.”

The data is derived from UN statistics gathered from every country in the world about fossil fuel energy stockpiles, imports, exports and production, as well as energy data compiled by oil giant BP.

“If you know how much of a fuel is consumed and you know the oxidation rate and you know the carbon content of the fuel, you can derive the emission estimate, so it is a pretty straightforward algorithm as far as the calculation,” said Boden.

The US team has been calculating the data in the same way over the past two decades, so the hike in 2010 was initially viewed with disbelief by Boden and some if his colleagues, he said.

“We were a bit shocked. Our first reaction was, ‘Gee there must be some problems in the underlying energy data.’

“Then, when we actually started to explore other data streams, like the population data, like GDP data, and when we started to look at the actual atmospheric data, all of it paints a consistent picture and we believe it.”

Boden added that the planet has been able to keep up, to some extent, with the rising carbon by absorbing more through forests and other so-called carbon sinks.

“We are loading more carbon into the atmosphere. The question is are the natural sinks like the terrestrial biosphere able to keep that up?”

According to climate scientist Scott Mandia, the latest data should serve as warning that our fossil fuel burning habits must change.

“Science tells us that we are driving in a fog headed toward a cliff but are unsure just how far away it is,” said Mandia.

“Given this warning, it is quite foolish to be stepping on the accelerator.”

By Agence France-Presse

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Thousands March in Occupy Portland Last Night

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Video of the Occupy Rome march and violence

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Employment in Durable Goods is Dropping 2011

At some point during any business expansion, dividends increase at a faster rate than corporate earnings. When that occurs, our know-nothing corporate heroes begin to cut jobs, reduce or hold steady employee compensation, or outsource jobs. They also curtail business-to-business transactions to save money and push earnings higher.

That’s why the demand for durable goods decreases prior to the beginning of every economic downturn. By the way, a durable good is any product that is expected to last a minimum three years, like cars, stereos, computers and copiers. As businesses that produce durable goods begin to fulfill their contracts, as consumer demand drops due to increasing lay-offs and stagnant compensation, as businesses cut back on business expenditures, the employees in the durable goods industries are the first to feel the effect. Their hours are reduced.

According the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of hours worked by employees in the durable goods industries have fallen from 40.9 in May 2011 to 40.7 in June and 40.6 in July. I should point out that the June and July figures are preliminary and could be revised upward. However, that is unlikely. Regardless, these figures are not a good sign, especially since they are following a contraction of corporate profits. This is a sign that we’re heading for an even greater recession than what we have experienced so far.

Now for the bad news. The largest redistribution of income from working people to the rich have occurred during the last thirty years. This has taken money out of the hands of working people and decreased the demand for goods and services. And that is why the current economic expansion is the weakest since the last one under President George W. Bush.

President Obama and good liberal politicians such as Senator Ron “Corporate Bitchboy” Wyden and Corporate Congressbitchboy Earl Blumenauer plan to vote for redistributing more income and wealth from working people to the rich via free trade pacts with South Korea, Columbia and Panama. I’ll begin a series on those redistributions tomorrow.

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