Wall Street’s War Against the Middle Class

Wall Street’s War Against the Middle Class

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The Republican Party and the Economy

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Eight Key Charts About the Growing Income Inequality in the United States

Number one is real simple. I predicted it in my book, The Rigged Game: Corporate America and a People Betrayed, that income inequality is growing in the United States. President Obama, Wall Street Senator Ron Wyden, the Democratic party leadership, Mitt Romney and the Republican party leadership, know this. They all have the same plan regardless of who wins the upcoming presidential election. They plan to make sure income inequality continues to grow by redistributing income and wealth from the 99 to the 1 percent.

Currently, the 1 percent receive about 30 percent of all income in the US, up from about 7-8 percent in 1980. That means the 99 percent have less money to purchase stuff with, which is why the economy is mired in this Great Recession, jobs are scarce, and the economy is tilting on the edge of an economic abyss that will make our current situation look like the good old days.

There is one key difference between the two; Republicans want to redistribute income to the 1 percent faster than the Democrats. Big Deal. The end result is the same; the economic disenfranchisement of the 99 percent. It will soon be banana republic time in the United States. Political disenfranchisement has already occurred.

The rich have created a much larger income gap because they have stolen the money from the 99 percent via US legislation, such as free trade treaties, deregulation and privatization scams. All of these redistribute income from the 99 to the 1 percent.

Liberal Wall Street Senator Ron Wyden, a nasty son-of-a-Wall Street-Bitch, is a driving force behind these scams. Free trade treaties open the door for US businesses to ship (or create) jobs overseas. The difference between the lost higher wage US jobs and the new lower overseas jobs goes into the pockets of the rich via higher corporate profits, surging dividends and rising share prices. The senator of Wall Street knows this but continues to vote for Wall Street and hedge funds over the interests of the 99 percent. Worse yet, the jobs shipped away or created overseas were once the tax base that supported government services, such as schools, roads, bridges, fire fighters and polices.

“The middle class is shrinking. According to Prof. Alan Krueger, Chairman of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, ‘the shift in income inequality over the last three decades is the equivalent of moving $1.1 trillion of income from the 99 percent to the top 1 percent every single year.’” There’s a reason for this. That’s because $1.1 trillion of income has been redistributed every year on average from the 99 to the 1 percent via free trade treaties, deregulation and privatization scams.

The middle class is still shrinking under Obama. He knows this and continues to sign legislation to do exactly this. Last autumn he signed free trade treaties with Panama, South Korea and Colombia. The result, according to numerous estimates, will be a net loss of nearly a million jobs. So the difference between the old higher wages and the new lower wages goes into the pockets of the wealthy. Now Obama has his people negotiating the Trans Pacific Free Trade Agreement (TPP), which the Guardian newspaper of the UK calls “Nafta on steroids.” The TPP will accelerate the decline of the middle class by redistributing more income and political power from the 99 to the 1 percent. Obama knows this, but continues the policy anyway.

So what? Profits are up? Where are the jobs? Obviously, trickle down didn’t work. Worldwide, US corporations are sitting on over $5 trillion. But they can’t invest it because demand is so slack due to the massive redistribution of income from the 99 to the 1 percent.

Wall Street Mitt the Twit Romney claims tax cuts for the rich will stimulate the economy, but 30 years of failed trickle down economics is ultimately the primary reason the current economy sucks big time, like total New Great Depression. The Twit’s trickle down economic policies will only make things worse for the 99 percent. That’s because the 1 percent will have more income with the cuts with which to purchase more legislation from Mitt Romney (if elected), Obama (if re-elected), Ron Wyden, John Boehner, Rand Paul, Earl Blumenauer and lots of others in congress and the senate. So does Obama and Wyden. Too bad for the 99 percent. Apparently, Mitt the Twit thinks the US economy should be used to redistribute income from the 99 to the 1 percent. Make the rich richer at the expense of the rest of us? I don’t think that’s what an economy is for.

Bank profits are enormous because the Federal Reserve continues to help these folks out. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke last week announced a plan to stimulate the economy. It was a lie. The fed has decided to purchase $40 billion of worthless mortgage backed bonds from wealthy investors and institutions such as investment banks like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. The Fed will purchase the worthless or nearly worthless bonds on a face value basis. If the investors or banks paid $10 million for the bonds, which are now valueless, the Fed will still pay the stupid bank or investor $10 million for the worthless bonds. The Fed has been very helpful with increasing the profits of banks for several years now using such scams.

CEO pay has risen because the government and the Federal Reserve continue to bail out the rich and help to increase corporate profits by enacting income redistribution legislation, like the South Korea free trade treaty. See the chart above.

There is a reason 1 in 5 US workers earn so little. Wall Street Senator Ron Wyden and others continue to redistribute income from the 99 to the 1 percent via free trade treaties that ship or create jobs overseas. This puts downward pressure on wages in the US, which redistributes income from the 99 to the 1 percent. The same process occurs when too many immigrants come to the US, creating a surplus of labor, which also puts downward pressure on wages. Republicans love this, but so do Wall Street democrats, like Ron Wyden.

Related story

Breakdown of the $26 trillion the Federal Reserve Handed Out to Save Stupid, but Rich, Investors and Banks

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Another Conservative Economic Lie Exposed

Parasite Wall Street Mitt Romney says the US jobs numbers are catastrophic, horrible and even worse, and the US needs to cut taxes for corporations and the rich, as well as bust unions, to solve the problem. Then we’d open the floodgates to millions of jobs. That’s pure bull crap, and Wall Street Mitt knows it.

Right now US corporations are sitting on $1.7 trillion in the US and over $5 trillion worldwide. Apple Inc. is sitting on $117 billion. Why isn’t supply-side economics working? There’s only one answer. It never has. It was always a lie to deceive the 99 percent. So giving tax breaks to corporations and the rich will only allow them to purchase more political power with which to suck the rest of us dryer, thereby depressing the economy and jobs markets further. Then the 1 percent will use their financial muscle to legislatively steal more from the 99 percent and stick their ill gotten gains in their own pockets. That’s why Wall Street Mitt’s call for more tax cuts for corporations and the rich will only lead to more disaster for the 99 percent.

That’s precisely why labor’s share of total national income has sunk to its lowest level since records have been kept. That’s the real issue and the real economic point that needs to be made. Demand is weak because the middle and poor classes have been legislatively sucked financially dry by the parasites of the 1 percent.

Click the link below for the rest of the story.

Conservative Economic Lies Exposed–The Guardian UK

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The Republican Economic Dream; We’re Living In It

The Republican Party leadership continues to argue that the best way to spur the economy to great heights is to “cut spending and cut taxes on the rich.” By now, everybody but a large number of foolish and ignorant Republican party members know this isn’t true. Here’s something most people don’t know.

The Obama administration, largely because they’re Wall Street puppets and due to Republican party obstructionism in the House of Representatives, have been following this course. Click below to read the complete story.

There is something not mentioned in the link below. Both the Democrats and the Republicans have one common goal; make the affluent richer by soaking the rest of us dry. To that end both parties have been extraordinarily successful!

We Are Living the Republican Party Dream

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Al Gore takes aim at “unsustainable” capitalism

The corporate economic system is not sustainable. The US is in the midst of a long term, slow motion economic collapse. For the vast majority of people the system may get marginally better in the short term, especially in the months before an important election, but in the long term things are getting worse. The government will continue to enact policies that redistribute income from working people to the rich. But some people are beginning to realize this, or at least they say so.

click here for the complete story

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Economics in 2012: no gain, just pain as austerity brings misery to all

The fluctuations of the financial markets and the relentless round of make-or-break euro-summits gripped the attention in 2011, but this will be the year when the shockwaves are felt by millions of people in Europe and beyond.

Click here for the rest of the story

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An Open Letter to Greg Mankiw from the Harvard Political Review–Be the first to post a reply to this and receive a free copy of “The Rigged Game,” Be the first student from Harvard to post a reply and also receive a free copy. “

To receive a free copy, leave a way for me to communicate with you like an email address, home address, or telephone number. Whatever makes you feel most comfortable. I’ll also send you some other alternative, realistic, non-Foxnews, non-Koch Brothers, non-Bush, non-Mankiw economics that I can photocopy for you. These are from reliable sources, such as Nobel prize winners, like Gunnar Myrdal.

Campus — November 2, 2011 2:23 am

By Harvard Talks Politics

The following letter was sent to Greg Mankiw by the organizers of today’s Economics 10 walkout.

Wednesday November 2, 2011

Dear Professor Mankiw—

Today, we are walking out of your class, Economics 10, in order to express our discontent with the bias inherent in this introductory economics course. We are deeply concerned about the way that this bias affects students, the University, and our greater society.

As Harvard undergraduates, we enrolled in Economics 10 hoping to gain a broad and introductory foundation of economic theory that would assist us in our various intellectual pursuits and diverse disciplines, which range from Economics, to Government, to Environmental Sciences and Public Policy, and beyond. Instead, we found a course that espouses a specific—and limited—view of economics that we believe perpetuates problematic and inefficient systems of economic inequality in our society today.

A legitimate academic study of economics must include a critical discussion of both the benefits and flaws of different economic simplifying models. As your class does not include primary sources and rarely features articles from academic journals, we have very little access to alternative approaches to economics. There is no justification for presenting Adam Smith’s economic theories as more fundamental or basic than, for example, Keynesian theory.

Care in presenting an unbiased perspective on economics is particularly important for an introductory course of 700 students that nominally provides a sound foundation for further study in economics. Many Harvard students do not have the ability to opt out of Economics 10. This class is required for Economics and Environmental Science and Public Policy concentrators, while Social Studies concentrators must take an introductory economics course—and the only other eligible class, Professor Steven Margolin’s class Critical Perspectives on Economics, is only offered every other year (and not this year). Many other students simply desire an analytic understanding of economics as part of a quality liberal arts education. Furthermore, Economics 10 makes it difficult for subsequent economics courses to teach effectively as it offers only one heavily skewed perspective rather than a solid grounding on which other courses can expand. Students should not be expected to avoid this class—or the whole discipline of economics—as a method of expressing discontent.

Harvard graduates play major roles in the financial institutions and in shaping public policy around the world. If Harvard fails to equip its students with a broad and critical understanding of economics, their actions are likely to harm the global financial system. The last five years of economic turmoil have been proof enough of this.

We are walking out today to join a Boston-wide march protesting the corporatization of higher education as part of the global Occupy movement. Since the biased nature of Economics 10 contributes to and symbolizes the increasing economic inequality in America, we are walking out of your class today both to protest your inadequate discussion of basic economic theory and to lend our support to a movement that is changing American discourse on economic injustice. Professor Mankiw, we ask that you take our concerns and our walk-out seriously.

Sincerely,

Concerned students of Economics 10

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Harvard Students Boycott Bush Economic Advisor As Instructor

Harvard students who participated in a walk-out of economics professor Greg Mankiw’s class on Wednesday issued an open letter accusing Mankiw of pushing a biased view of economics that perpetuates inequality.

“As Harvard undergraduates, we enrolled in Economics 10 hoping to gain a broad and introductory foundation of economic theory,” the students wrote. “Instead, we found a course that espouses a specific—and limited—view of economics that we believe perpetuates problematic and inefficient systems of economic inequality in our society today.”

The students also wrote that because Harvard routinely churns out future world leaders in government and business, the school had to be especially cautious to provide students with a fair, solid education.
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John Hively has something for students interested in this issue. Be the first to comment to this post and get a free copy of The Rigged Game: Corporate America and a People Betrayed. Just leave a way for me to get in touch with you. The first Harvard student that comments on this story can get a free copy, as well, even if the first person to comment is also a student at Harvard. –John Hively

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Obama Selects Princeton University Economist as his New Economic Advisor–Why That Choice is Both Good and Bad for Working People

President Barack Obama on Monday tapped one of the nation’s top labor economists, Alan Krueger, to become the next chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, a selection that underscores the president’s “urgent mission” to jump-start the economy.

Why is the selection of Krueger important? For one, the president decided he wanted to get reelected. So he selected Krueger because he isn’t known to be a former high level employee of Goldman Sachs or Citibank. The Princeton University professor also has performed legitimate research in the labor market. He discovered, for example, that raising the minimum wage of workers in the restaurant industry increases employment in that industry, most likely because it increases the demand for restaurant products. That is something, of course, that FDR knew way back in 1933. And Obama surely knew it last year and the year before, and a dozen years ago. But back in 2008, Obama instead chose to hire Goldman Sachs hacks as his economic advisers. Now that his job security is in jeopardy with the coming election, now that the only difference between Bush and Obama has been exposed (it takes the Republicans a few days more to get what they want under Obama than under Bush, as they continue to redistribute income from the middle class to the rich with Obama’s blessings) the president has decided to put on some working class window dressing so as to appear that he’s working on behalf of working people, which he isn’t, and which he has never intended to do.

“Alan brings a wealth of experience to the job. He’s one of the nation’s leading economists,” Obama said in White House Rose Garden as he introduced the Princeton economics professor, who from 2009 to 2010 served as the Treasury Department’s assistant secretary for economic policy and chief economist. “I have nothing but confidence in Alan as he takes on this important role in my economic team.”

Obama said he expects that Krueger will offer advice that is not driven by partisan politics, especially now that president cannot get any legislation passed without conceding to all of the Republican demands. “We need folks in Washington to make decisions based on what’s best for the country, not what’s best for any political party or special interest,” he said. Like he really expects to do that.

The nomination sets the tone for the administration’s jobs-focused fall, as the White House prepares to announce a major new jobs initiative after Labor Day. There are few prominent labor economists, and the president’s decision to pick one underscores the administration’s aims.

Obama emphasized that reviving the economy is his priority. “Next week, I will be laying out a series of steps that Congress can take immediately to put more money in the pockets of working families, middle-class families,” he said.

The president also pledged the federal government’s continued dedication to providing assistance to those who suffered damage in Hurricane Irene. “It’s going to take time to recover from a storm of this magnitude,” he said, especially in New England, where the storm set off major flooding.

If confirmed, Krueger would be Obama’s third CEA chairman, following Christina Romer and Austan Goolsbee, who left the White House this summer to return to his professorship at the University of Chicago.

Krueger, 50, arrived at Princeton in 1987, after finishing his Ph.D. at Harvard. Jointly appointed in the economics department and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Krueger has examined job growth, the effects of increases in the minimum wage and the long-term unemployed.

He spent a year-and-a-half in his previous Obama administration post, working on stimulus measures including the Cash for Clunkers program, Build America Bonds and the Hire America Act. He also served as chief economist at the Labor Department during part of the Clinton administration.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner praised the selection of Krueger, saying he is “one of the most distinguished” people to serve as assistant secretary for economic policy. “Given his expertise in labor economics, he is precisely the right choice to lead the CEA at this moment in history.”
Geithner weighed in on the pick, a Treasury source told POLITICO.

“We obviously said we were strongly supportive of Alan based on his excellent work as the assistant secretary for economic policy here,” said a source familiar with the conversations between the White House and Treasury.

Krueger’s nomination must be confirmed by the Senate, but he’s already cleared that process once in recent years — for the Treasury post — suggesting that the administration has confidence he’ll be able to easily do so again.

Perhaps the president has finally come to his senses, but since he can’t get anything passed through congress, he probably it won’t hurt his attempts to enrich Wall Street at the expense of working people. However, it’s likely the selection of Krueger will make no difference to working folks. His selection at the worst should do no harm, like the president did when he selected Timothy Geither and Lawrence Summers.

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