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?

Read Full Post »

The Rise of the New Hoovervilles: Income Redistribution From the 99 to the 1 Percent Equal Homelessness in the USA

Over thirty million jobs have been shipped out of the US since 1990. One to two million are being off shored every year, according to the Federal Reserve. The results are simple. The rich are getting richer, there are rising numbers of US citizens unemployed or who have stopped looking for work, homelessness and joblessness are rising, school district budgets are constraining since much of the tax base has been redistributed to the 1 percent via free trade treaties and their congressional supporters, such as Wall Street Senator Ron “Fetch Boy” Wyden. We know homelessness has been created by congress and the president via legislation that redistributes income from the 99 to the 1 percent so much that Hoovervilles have been rising up all over the nation.

During the Great Depression, a Hooverville was anywhere and everywhere people found places to live along road sides, and they were named after another Wall Street president, Herbert Hoover, whose Republican economic policies, and those of his predecessor, President Calvin Coolidge, destroyed the nation.

Two videos are below. The first is about the original Hoovervilles, and the second is about the modern Obama/Bush43/Bush41/Clinton/Reaganvilles. The jobless have become the homeless.

Read Full Post »

Book Review: The End of the Free Market by Ian Bremmer

This is an incredibly dumb book and it’s very boring. It lacks clarity and decent research to back up it’s point, whatever it is. For example, the author implies that the Smoot-Hawley Act was responsible for the depth of the Great Depression, yet all academic studies show that the act had little impact on the severity of the Great depression. On top of that, Bremmer argues that modern nations don’t attack each other much, but “In 2010, the US troops are still fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, but they’re struggling to overcome militants and insurgents, not foreign military powers.”

How brain dead can one get? The United States was not invited by the governments of Iraq and Afghanistan to help them against militants and insurgents. Apparently, Ian Bremmer doesn’t know the United States invaded and occupied those nations. That’s how profoundly stupid this book is.

The central argument of the book is that Wall Street is good, although he doesn’t say for what, and that free trade is good, although he doesn’t say for what. All Wall Street needs is more regulation. As if Wall Street would want that.

An accompanying argument is that foreign governments own corporations that compete with private US corporations. And they do this for political purposes. Duh! But the author’s ignorance is so enormous that he cannot comprehend that US corporations own the US government, lock, stock and barrel. For example, agents of the Monsanto corporation wrote the recently passed Monsanto Protection Act that congress passed and President Obama signed. Wall Street investment banks don’t want more regulation, and so the government of which they are the primary shareholders via their investments in politicians, such as Wall Street Senator Ron Wyden, isn’t going to regulate them.

Bremmer is woefully ignorant on too many levels to be taken seriously. He doesn’t comprehend how free trade treaties, for example, redistribute income from the 99 to the 1 percent and wreck the economy in the process. According the Federal Reserve, over 27 million US jobs have been off shored since Nafta. The difference between the old higher wages and the new lower wages gets redistributed into the pockets of the rich via higher corporate earnings, rising share prices and more dividends.

This book doesn’t even deserve one star because it reads like a apology and justification for Wall Street and the many crimes committed by its CEO’s, lawyers, traders and others. It’s pure pointless propaganda with a weak central argument.

Read Full Post »

Are We In the USA Better Off Than Four Years Ago?

Everybody with half a brain knows we in the US are better off than four years ago. The US was on the verge of an economic collapse four years ago, thanks to Republican policies. The policies of President Obama and the Federal Reserve saved the day. Under the Republican plan, which Wall Street Mitt the Twit Romney and his running mate Paul “Complete Idiot” Ryan plan to resurrect, the US economy was on the verge of a complete collapse, like during the Great Depression.

On the other hand, the US remains on the verge of collapse and Obama and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke have no intention of doing anything about it. And it’s worse than I make it out to be. With over 93 percent of all US income growth going to the 1 percent, it’s only a matter of time before the economy continues to collapse.

Only the federal deficit, the Great Society programs like food stamps, and the New Deal (Social Security, unemployment insurance, etc…) have kept demand at a high enough level to stop the coming Great Collapse.

Click the link below for why the Democrats should celebrate Obama’s successes, but not his failure.

Is the USA Better Off Now Than Four Years Ago? The Guardian UK

Read Full Post »

Is the US Economic Recovery a Mirage?

In Europe, there is a rising view that the US economic recovery, from the most recent recession that was exacerbated by the disastrous housing bubble, income redistributing Clinton and Bush free trade treaties and the Bush tax cuts, is a mirage. That may well be true. And it may not be true. From my point of view, however, the US economy is in a slow motion collapse.

The only thing slowing the arrival of a new Great Depression is FDR’s New Deal programs, like Social Security, Unemployment Insurance and the Minimum Wage, and LBJ’s Great Society Programs, like the food stamp program. Those legislative feats are keeping the demand for goods and services higher than would be normal without the programs. They’ve also lifted GNP.

The US economy is already dangerously teetering on the cliff of another Great Depression. It’s not like Democratic and Republican Party politicians care, because they don’t. Their job is to use legislation to redistribute income from the 99 to the 1 percent. That’s what the 1 percent pay their good lap dogs for, plutocrats like Senator Ron Wyden and Congressman Earl Blumenauer, for example.

Unfortunately, that legislative redistribution of income and wealth continues. President Obama, for example, is pushing for the Trans Pacific Free Trade Treaty, which the Nation magazine calls “Nafta on steroids.”

For more on how some Europeans view the US economy as a “mirage,” click the link below.

The Guardian–UK "US Economic Recovery is a Dangerous Mirage

Read Full Post »

Why Wall Street Mitt is Wrong When He Says He’ll Cut Government Spending and That Will Solve All Our Economic Problems

The US economy is slowing and there’s a reason for it. This is lost on Wall Street Mitt Romney, a presidential candidate that wants to elevate the economic aristocrats of Wall Street by laying waste the American middle class.

So why is the economy slowing? Government spending is decreasing, thanks to Republicans in the House of Representatives who would rather starve middle class babies to death than follow the president’s lead and enact policies that might make President Obama re-electable.

So why is decreasing government spending a bad thing? Neither Republicans, Democrats or the corporate media want you to know the real reason.

Right now the 1 percent steal via corrupted government legislation about 26 percent of the total US income, that includes 93 percent of all income growth over the last two years. They’re getting more and more while the 99 percent is getting less and less. Thirty years ago, the 1 percent got around 8 percent of total US income. Three years ago it was 24 percent.

That means the 99 percent has less money to demand the goods and services necessary to keep the economy afloat.

What do the rich do with the cash? They invest it in sucking more cash out of the 99 percent. They buy stocks and bonds and push CEO’s to ship jobs overseas. The extra cash gives them additional funds to purchase more legislators, like Wall Street Senator Ron Wyden, and influence them to enact free trade treaties that enable corporations to ship the jobs of the 99 percent overseas, or make it easier to create them there, rather than here. The difference between the old, higher, wages here and the new lower wages there go into the pockets of the 1 percent via higher stock prices, rising dividends and greater corporate profits. The 1 percent also purchase deregulation, which helps to suck us dry, as well as other legislation that does the same thing.

So if the members of the 99 percent experience a reduction of income from 92 to 74 percent, that means they have less money to spend. The economy should collapse unless there’s something that makes up the difference of 18 percent. That difference took the form of a housing bubble to some degree. It took the form of a credit bubble and a tech bubble. The truth is that, ultimately, government spending has gradually taken up the slack.

Reduce government spending right now and the demand for goods and services slows and the economy contracts, which it appears to be doing. It’s possible the cutbacks are insufficient to send us over a cliff just yet, since the spending reductions in terms of percentage aren’t that huge.

On the other hand, if Wall Street Mitt becomes president he’ll put the petal to the metal, slash government spending, and send us barreling further into an economic catastrophe that may make the Great Depression look like great times. Actually, we’re already in a calamity brought about by Republican and Democratic Party income redistribution scams that suck money from the 99 to the 1 percent, but this can’t go on forever, unless most voters prefer the US become a banana republic.

In other words, a vote for Wall Street Mitt is a vote for a rapid expansion of unemployment that will likely enrich Wall Street titans by redistributing income from the 99 to the 1 percent.

As an aside, this redistribution scam has brought on every recession for as far back as statistics are available. Here’s a little known fact. Dividend payments soared during the first eighteen months of the Great Depression. The rich got richer as people were laid off and the wages from the lost jobs were diverted to profits and dividend payments.

Read Full Post »

The First Sign of a Recession Appears

New orders for durable goods fell 4.2 percent last month. Orders have dropped two out of the last three months. When the orders for durable goods drops, it can herald the beginning of the end of whatever business expansion we’re in. It’s the scary canary in the economic coal mine. However, falling orders for durable goods does not necessarily signal the beginning of the end, but it is always the first step.

Durable goods are those things that ordinarily last three or more years, like pipes, computers, cars, toilets, stereos and stuff like that.

We should keep an eye on financial events as they unfold because the next recession could come quickly and with savage intensity since the rich are getting an ever greater share of the total national income through their political power over Republicans and Democrats alike. The one percent heisted 93 percent of the total national income growth from 2009 to 2010, and it is likely their share is about the same for the 2010 to 2011 fiscal year. That means there’s less money among the 99 percent to demand the goods and services necessary to keep the economy floating and to increase the number of jobs, while the rich have more money and political clout to demand and get legislation that redistributes even more income into their already fat wallets.

So hold on to your jobs, because the recession could be coming soon. Oh, and by the way. We’re still in the Second Great Depression that began in December 2007.

Click here for the full durable goods story

Read Full Post »

Are We Heading for a World-Wide Great Depression? Backlash from Beijing raises fears that China’s economy is slowing down China is tightening trade policy and imposing punitive import taxes – a clear indication, say experts, that it fears an economic ‘hard landing’

I told you so. The USA is mired in a depression, as in Great Depression. The only thing holding the economy up has been FDR’s New Deal. The rich have sucked too many of us working class people dry and dryer. They have their government enact foreign treaties that take our jobs and ship them to overseas. The difference between the old pay in the USA and the new pay of those same jobs in say, Vietnam, goes into the pockets of the rich. Say the old pay was $50,000 and the new pay in Vietnam is $3,000. The difference of $47,000 goes into the pockets of the rich via dividends and rising share prices and CEO compensation. The US worker who loses that job just saw his income redistributed to the rich, and that income is redistributed year after year, for so long as the job remains outside of the USA. That’s why the US is in such dire straits economically. We working folks don’t have enough money to buy enough things to keep the economy going forward, for when we do, we create the demand for products, which spur the growth of jobs. The loss of jobs due to Jobs Outsourcing and Redistribution of Income treaties have been a massive reason why the economy is as it is; weak and getting weaker.

Now Europe is facing economic collapse due to the adoption of the Euro, and China might be heading down the road to recession. The Chinese factor looms big. See the story below.

Is China Going to Push the Depression in the USA into a World-Wide Problem? Click here for China's Economic Woes

Read Full Post »

International Monetary Fund warns that world risks sliding into a 1930s-style slump

This is one of the dumbest stories I’ve read in a long time. The world risks sliding into a 1930s-style slump? Give me a break. The world is sliding into a 1930s-style Great Depression. Apparently, the author of the story below hasn’t figured it out yet. Maybe that person means everything is getting worse. Anyway, here’s the story.

The world risks sliding into a 1930s-style slump unless countries settle their differences and work together to tackle Europe’s deepening debt crisis, the head of the International Monetary Fund has warned.

Click here for the rest of the story

Read Full Post »

Day Four of Cycle Oregon and the Current Great Depression–Thank You George Bush, The Republicons, Senator Ron “Hedge Fund” Wyden and Congressman Earl Blumenauer, the Oregonian Newspaper

Like Derek and I this morning, the majority of the United States have been foolishly sleeping in and walking around brain dead.

I woke up, but stayed half asleep this morning. I listened to the sounds of people getting up in the tents around us. The light wind briefly blew a hot breath of port-a-pottie fragrance our way, much like the port-a-pottie of rich man’s politics has been filling us with the foul stench of lies and led us down the road to economic depression by diverting and depriving us of our senses and common sense for thirty years.

I was sore and tired and ready to return to sleep, but I couldn’t. I dragged my battered, aching body out of bed and headed for the communal showers. These are located in trailer rigs.

I grabbed an Oregonian newspaper and headed for breakfast with Derek. We grabbed pancakes, eggs, mush, sausages and coffee and headed for a table. I read the Oregonian. The front page didn’t shock me. I read the article.

“Hey Derek,” I said, “listen to this.”

Derek stopped eating and looked at me.

I read, “‘According to the Census figures, the median annual income for a male full-time, year-round worker in 2010–$47,715–was virtually unchanged, in 2010 dollars, from its level in 1973, when it was $49,065, said Sheldon Danziger, professor of public policy at the University of Michigan.’” I inhaled. “That’s stupid. Obviously these wages are not the same. They’d probably have to go all the way back to the sixties to make a more accurate comparison because wages were a tad lower in the years before 1973. That’s when wages peaked.”

I turned the page of the newspaper and read more, “‘And in new signs of distress among the middle class, median household incomes fell last year to levels last seen in 1997. Economists seized on a telling statistic: It was the first time since the Great Depression that the median U.S. household had a lower income, adjusted for inflation, than 13 years earlier, said Lawrence Katz, an economics professor at Harvard University.’”

Derek tilted his head a little and asked, “What does that mean?”

I said, “It means we’re in a Great Depression and the only thing holding up the economy is the New Deal. You can thank Reagan, Bush 1, Clinton, Bush 2, Obama, Blumenauer, Wyden and the Oregonian newspaper for that. I slammed the paper on the table.

This article will continue tomorrow if I have computer access. I’ll explain how the Oregonian newspaper, Blumenauer, Senator Ron “Hedge Fund” Wyden, and others brought about this disaster, and more importantly, how they intend to follow the same policies that they know will make things worse for the middle class. They’ll do this by redistributing income from the middle class to rich people.

Read Full Post »