The United States is a Dictatorship of the Billionaires

Divide and conquer; nobody has done it better than the billionaires who have controlled the United States via their two major political parties and their Supreme Court for the last forty years. But first a few comments.

I wonder if the downturn of the stock market on June 9-11, 2020 was just a correction, although I am suspicious it marks an increase in market volatility on its way toward the intersection where the real downtrodden economy meets the robust Wall Street market. In which case, we could be looking at a rapid or slow and long-term decline in share prices.

I do not think a lot of people understand that we are at the beginning of a recession and not at the end. I suspect that many people were buying the stocks of corporations for the last two weeks that are going bankrupt (think Hertz) because of desperation of their financial situations since 40 percent of US adults do not have $400 to cover an emergency, not in savings, not in credit cards or other assets, if I remember correctly.

I have read and listened to many experts on the rise of the stock market since March while the economy has tanked, but I have not heard how income and wealth inequality has driven the stock markets to record highs by redistributing trillions of dollars from the 99 to the 1 percent over the last forty years, nor do I hear how financially desperate many people are; not even those who are buying bankrupt Hertz and J.C. Penny shares. Those subjects are not allowed by the billionaires who own all the major news sources.

I have a good neighbor and he just got laid off from his job and fears losing his house. I see desperation written all over his face and in the tone of his voice when I speak with him. I see the middle class families in nice cars and wearing nice clothes rummaging through the recycle bins the night before the trucks pick that stuff up. Most, but not all of these folks, did not begin their rummaging pilgrimages until March. I watched videos a few days ago of the first food lines for the middle class since the Great Depression of 1929-40, a line of 600+ cars deep, people in their new Toyota Lexus’s, and other high end newer cars, who needed to gather free food in order to feed themselves. 20 to 40 million people are unemployed and all the congress would do was save the billionaires. See The CARES Act; the Rich get $4.75 Trillion and We Get the Crumbs.

We are at the beginning of a recession that will be severe because 40 years of the greed of sociopathic rich folks who control both major political parties and the Supreme Court, and who can never get enough money, and far more than they could ever spend, and who derive almost, and in many cases, all, of their income and wealth from the ownership of corporate shares, either through capital gains, dividends or corporate bonds.

Then you have the gullible grassroots on the political right who have been led to think the communists are controlling things; and then you have the gullible on the left who think the Democratic Party leaders actually give a rat’s ass about them; for the grassroots of both the left and right, the reality is unhidden and staring straight into their eyes.

All you need to do is look at Nancy Pelosi’s Heroes Act, the fifth stimulus since coronavirus shut down the U.S.; this legislation extends the government’s extra $600 unemployment insurance per week through the end of the year, and provides other income to the 99 percent too, although much of the money in the proposed legislation will still go to the rich. Pelosi waited to push the Heroes Act through the Democratic controlled House after both Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and President Trump said they were not interested in a fifth stimulus. Pelosi knew the Heroes Act was grand theatre for the blind faithful even though she could have easily negotiated more money for the 99 percent with McConnell and Trump during the first, second, and third bailouts, when McConnell and Trump were desperate to save the billionaires who pull their strings, which happen to be the same strings they use to pull Nancy Pelosi with. She did not negotiate for us little folks. Did she?

The billionaires pulled the strings of Pelosi, McConnell and Trump to come up with the notorious CARES Act, which bailed out the rich and their corporations to the tune of $4.75 trillion while throwing crumbs at the masses, which made for good theatrical effect. The billionaire’s corporate news media did their duty and only reported on the crumbs and how great they were.

As for the grassroots on the right, the CARES ACT alone should tell them how insanely wrong they are to assume Democratic Party politicians are controlled by communists, and the CARES Act should tell them that Republican politicians would not give a snail’s fart to help them out during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. And you would think the blind followers of the Democrats could figure out that the Democratic Party politicians have not cared about them since Jimmy Carter was president.

The voters of both sides, you would think, would by now figure out that both Democratic and Republican Party politicians threw them overboard forty years ago. It only takes one thing: using your brains to put two and two together.

Billionaires own this nation, both political parties, they have at least five United States Supreme Court judges in their back pockets, along with a lot of other judges; they own the media and only tell you what they want you to believe, and most of you believe the propaganda and the lies used to turn the grassroots of the right and the left against each other.

No, this economic crisis will not be over soon. This is going to be a long economic nightmare. The rich have gotten richer while the rest of us have been drained financially dryer during the last few months alone.

We have to figure out how, as a people and as a nation, we want to come out of this crisis. Lurching forward into another economic wasteland like Argentina is for the vast majority of its people; or with a strong political change that reins in the obvious corruption at all levels of the U.S. government, and ensuring a government of, by and for the people, rather than just continuing to impoverish ourselves under the dictatorship of the billionaires.

We have a collective choice to make and the time has come to cast aside our petty differences and organize. The 1 percent were taking at least 37 percent of the income produced in this nation in 2019, up from 8 percent in 1980. They are probably raking in over 40 percent so far this year. Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates owned more wealth than the bottom 50 percent of Americans, and that was before the crisis began. They are richer now.

If our situation continues on this path, the rich will steal even more income and wealth than is currently the case. Then we will be a nation like Argentina, once boasting a prosperous middle class on a level with the best European nations, and now with a population of mostly desperate people.

In the USA, the dictatorship of the billionaires will continue and become stronger unless the grassroots of both sides come together and realize they have economic issues that bind them. Until that day, the dictatorship of the billionaires will continue to impoverish us all even more so than today.

The billionaires will continue to use their corporate media to divide us and make permanent their conquest and subversion of our democracy, our Constitution, and our governments at all levels, local, state and federal.

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The CoronaVirus Bailout Is Working — for the Rich

As I mentioned back in March 2020, the economy is in free fall but the billionaires are thriving, and stocks of big private equity firms are soaring dramatically higher. As usual, the billionaires have been the real beneficiaries of the federal government’s massive rescue efforts. 

Ten weeks into the worst crisis in 90 years, the government’s effort to save the economy has been both a spectacular success and a tremendous failure.

Two events showed this better than anything. On Friday, May 8th, 2020, the government reported that 20.5 million people had lost their jobs in April. That is massive damage to the middle class. The rich receive 2/3rds to 100 percent of their income from holding corporate stock. The stock market rallied with the news of the 20.5 million lost jobs. They are likely expecting trillions more from the Federal government and the Federal Reserve. 

The second event happened on Thursday, May 14th. The government reported the middle class lost another 3.8 million jobs, and the stock market rallied again both that day and the following day. 

If you’re looking for the billionaire’s decision on who has won the four government and Federal Reserve bailouts, consider these returns: Shares of Apollo Group, the giant private equity firm, have soared 80 percent from their lows. The stock of Blackstone, another private equity behemoth, has risen 50 percent. The Nasdaq Composite Index has gotten back nearly all of its losses. 

 

ProPublica reports that billionaire clubs such as “Apollo and Blackstone, disproportionately the wealthiest and most influential, have been insured by the world’s most powerful central bank. This largess is boundless and without conditions. “Even if a second wave of outbreaks were to occur,” JPMorgan economists wrote in a celebratory note on May 9th, “the Fed has explicitly indicated that there is no dollar limit and no danger of running out of ammunition.”

“Many aspects of the coronavirus bailout that assist individuals or small businesses, meanwhile, are short-term or contingent. Aid to small businesses comes with conditions on what they can do with the money. The sums allocated by the CARES Act for stimulus and expanded unemployment insurance are vast by historical standards. But the relief they provide didn’t prevent tens of millions from losing their jobs. The assistance runs out in weeks, and the jobless live at the mercy of a divided Congress, which will decide whether that help gets extended and, if so, for how long.”

Meanwhile, the billionaire’s investment clubs can expect additional trillions of dollars from the Federal Reserve and U.S. government. Picture the CEOs of these firms manipulating puppets by a string, then picture Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell and you’ll understand how politics work. 

ProPublica went on, “The Fed’s efforts, universally praised for their boldness and speed, have come in two stages. First, in February and March, the central bank shored up the capital market “liquidity,” which marks how willing investors are to buy and sell. The central bank’s role is to be a “lender of last resort,” working through banks so they can get money to companies and people.

The second stage of the Fed’s extraordinary rescue goes beyond liquidity. It has said it will buy assets it has never bought before. For almost 100 years, the Fed purchased only government bonds. Now it has announced a wide variety of programs to buy various forms of corporate and other debt, either by direct lending, by buying bonds, or buying loans.”

The mere announcement that the Fed would do this had an immediate effect, spurring the boom in corporate borrowing. For example, if Amazon issued a bond costing $1 trillion at face value and it comes due in five years. The Fed simply buys the bond and Amazon gets $1 trillion from the Fed. When the bond comes due in five years,  the Fed will simply print up the money and pay itself. Meanwhile, Amazon and its mostly billionaire and multi-millionaire shareholders divvy up the trillion dollars among themselves. 

ProPublica reported, “The Fed didn’t stop with the most solid, safest corporate stalwarts. In early April, it also announced something unprecedented. The central bank said it would buy junk bonds, debt issued by fragile companies, many of which already have crushing debt loads. Sure enough, junk bonds roared back and their cousins, leveraged loans, revived.

In doing so, the Fed backstopped the riskiest markets in the world. The most dangerous investments in the world, it should go without saying, are not owned by middle- and working-class Americans, to whom every politician pledges fealty. No, they are owned by the most risk-seeking investors in the world, the ones that need the highest returns: private equity firms and hedge funds.

The Fed has to work through the credit markets. The House and Senate have much greater powers, the power of the purse and of legislation. Congress could have passed laws that directed help in different ways. Europe has essentially nationalized payrolls, a much more direct form of aid to people who have lost the ability to work. However, the rotted corruption of the U.S. Federal government has seen it reluctant to use sufficient fiscal measures going back to the 2008 rescue.

What happens if the economy doesn’t come back soon? If the health crisis does not pass quickly, or if the economy does not roar back, the Fed’s actions might prove inadequate. But investors shouldn’t be too worried. They have been taught they can count on the government to rescue them from their bad investment decisions, and so they can make plenty of bad investment decisions. 

The Bailout is Working for the Rich-ProPublica

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Elizabeth Warren and the Billionaires Who Hate Her

Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren understands economics and political power. She understands democracy, and she understands we no longer have a democracy. We have a plutocracy, which is a government for the rich and by the rich. The rich and their corporations have their power over all three branches of government, and they have used that power to redistribute tens of trillions of dollars from working people to themselves over the last forty years.

This week hedge fund CEO Leon Cooperman sent her a five-page letter complaining that she doesn’t know anything about billionaires, or him in particular. Leon apparently does not know that when you export millions of jobs, the difference between the old higher U.S. compensation and the new low, that is very low, third-world wages with no benefits goes straight into the pockets of the rich while the job losers get unemployment insurance.

This is why three people own more wealth than the bottom half of the U.S. population, This is why the six richest people in the world own more wealth than the bottom half of humanity. This is why 38+ percent of all income in the U.S. goes into the pockets of the 1 percent every year compared to roughly 8 percent as late as 1979. The billionaires have created massive amounts of political corruption and the destruction of United States democracy in the process. Warren understands this.

Leon Cooperman is facing a tax hike if Warren becomes president. Apparently, many billionaires are assuming this is the end of life as they know it.

Warren’s tax agenda has become a lightning rod for criticism by the ultrawealthy, including some, like Cooperman, who identify as political moderates. “What is wrong with billionaires?” Cooperman complained to Politico in a story that appeared last week. “You can become a billionaire by developing products and services that people will pay for.” Warren is not against billionaires who do this. She is against those who have rigged the economy and destroyed U.S. democracy in the process.

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The Billionaires Who Control the Democratic Party Rise Up Against Warren and Bernie

The billionaires who own the Democratic Party are preparing to sit out the presidential campaign fundraising cycle, and have threatened to back President Trump if Senator Elizabeth Warren wins the party’s nomination. We know where the loyalty of the billionaires who control the Democrat Party lie, and it is with their comrades in arms, the billionaires who own the RepubliCon Party.

The billionaires that control both major political parties work hard using their news media and talking heads to get Democratic and Republican voters to side with their party and argue with one another about social issues, such as abortion, gun control, or whether or not transgender bathrooms should have urinals, and whether or not Albus Dumbledore of Harry Potter fame is gay or not, and whether or not Santa Claus should be depicted as transgender or not, rather than talking about income, wealth and the political inequality the billionaires, their politicians (such as Wall Street Senator Ron Wyden) and their Supreme Court have created, and how the billionaires have rigged and corrupted the democracy we live in, while simultaneously working together to financially rob and rape the 99 percent of both Parties in whatever way possible so long as it makes them richer in the process.

The billionaires who control the Democratic Party have already supported President Trump on a number of issues, such as tax cuts for the rich.

Warren tweeted in response to the threat, “I’m fighting for an economy and a government that works for all of us, not just the wealthy and well-connected. I’m not afraid of anonymous quotes, and wealthy donors don’t get to buy this process. I won’t back down from fighting for the big, structural change we need.”

In recent weeks, CNBC spoke to several high-dollar Democratic donors and fundraisers in the business community and found that this opinion was becoming widely shared as Warren, an outspoken critic of big banks and corporations, gains momentum against Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders in the 2020 race.

What CNBC did not say was that the vast majority of U.S. citizens need a new Franklin Delano Roosevelt as United States president in order to stave off the predations of the billionaires who own both major political parties, as well as the corrupt/corporate/conservative wing of the United States Supreme Court.

One Democratic Party senior private equity executive said, “You’re in a box because you’re a Democrat and you’re thinking, ‘I want to help the party, but she’s going to hurt me, so I’m going to help President Trump.’” This billionaire spoke on the condition of anonymity in fear of retribution by party leaders. The executive said this Wednesday, a day after Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that the House would begin a formal impeachment inquiry into Trump.

During the campaign, Warren has put out multiple plans intended to curb the corrupting influence of Wall Street on government, both major political parties, and the United States Supreme Court, including a wealth tax. In July, she released a proposal that would make private equity firms responsible for debts and pension obligations of companies they buy. The billionaires surely do not want that. Trump, meanwhile, has given wealthy business leaders a helping hand with a major corporate tax cut and by eliminating regulations.

Warren has sworn off taking part in big money fundraisers for the 2020 presidential primary. She has also promised to not take donations from special interest groups. She finished raising at least $19 million in the second quarter mainly through small-dollar donors.

Trump, has been raising hundreds of millions of dollars, putting any eventual 2020 rival in a bind as 20 or so Democrats compete for their party’s nomination.

Trump’s campaign and the Republican National Committee have raised over $100 million in the second quarter, and a record $125 million in the third quarter. Most of that came from wealthy donors who gave to their joint fundraising committee, Trump Victory. In August, the RNC raised just over $23 million and has $53 million on hand.

The Democratic National Committee have struggled to keep up. The DNC finished August bringing in $7.9 million and has $7.2 million in debt. CNBC decided not to mention this is because Democratic grassroots voters are throwing tens of millions of dollars to the Warren and Bernie Sanders campaigns.

Biden, who has courted and garnered the support of various wealthy donors, has started to lag in some polls. The latest Quinnipiac poll has Warren virtually tied with the former vice president. Biden was one of three contenders that saw an influx of contributions from those on Wall Street in the second quarter.

The business community’s unease about Warren’s candidacy has surged in tandem with her campaign’s momentum. CNBC’s Jim Cramer said earlier this month that he’s heard from Wall Street executives that they believe Warren has “got to be stopped.”

Some big bank executives and hedge fund managers have been stunned by Warren’s ascent, and they are primed to resist her. Ultimately, this means they intend to resist the will of the vast majority of United States citizens.

“They will not support her. It would be like shutting down their industry,” an executive at one of the nation’s largest banks told CNBC, also speaking on condition of anonymity. This person said Warren’s policies could be worse for Wall Street than those of President Barack Obama, who signed the Dodd-Frank bank regulation bill in the wake of the 2008 financial meltdown.

Yet before Obama was elected, his campaign took over $1 million from employees at Goldman Sachs, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

A hedge fund executive pointed to Trump’s tax cut as a reason why his colleagues would not contribute or vote for Warren if she wins the nomination.

“I think if she can show that the tax code of 2017 was basically nonsense and only helped corporations, Wall Street would not like the public thinking about that,” this executive said, also insisting on anonymity.

This really means something simple: if you want to vote for your interests, as well as the interests of the vast majority of United States citizens, vote for Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders. If you want to vote for the interests of the billionaires’ vote for Joe Biden.

Billionaires Rise Up Against Elizabeth Warren

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Bernie Sanders Cannot Be Bought: The Democratic Presidential Candidates and the Billionaires Who Support Them

According to Forbes Magazine, not a single billionaire shows any financial support for Bernie Sanders in his run for the presidency. What do the billionaires expect in return for their support of the other candidates? We will not know unless we elect the billionaire’s candidate. One thing is certain; some of the billionaires want to continue to redistribute more income and wealth from the 99 percent to themselves.

The list was last updated on August 13th. According to Forbes, “67 billionaires—including spouses and members of billionaire families—had donated to the 20 Democratic candidates that debated in Detroit last week. Some, like Lowercase Capital founder Chris Sacca and his wife, Crystal, have donated to as many as seven candidates. Others, like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, have instead chosen to donate to only one of the contenders, according to data from the U.S. Federal Election Commission.”

Below is a list of the candidates rated by how many different billionaires support their public and non-public positions (i.e. We do not know what was promised).

1. Pete Buttigieg: 23 billionaire donors
2. Corey Booker: 18 billionaire donors
3. Kamala Harris: 17 billionaire donors–no wonder she says one thing to the public and another thing to her campaign donors.
4. Michael Bennet: 15 billionaire donors
5. Joe Biden: 13 billionaire donors
6. John Hickenlooper: 11 billionaire donors
7. Beto O’Rourke: 9 billionaire donors
8. Amy Klobuchar: 8 billionaire donors
9. Jay Inslee: 5 billionaire donors
10. Kirsten Gillibrand: 4 billionaire donors
11. Elizabeth Warren and John Delaney: 3 billionaire donors each
12. Steve Bullock: 2 billionaire donors
13. Tulsi Gabbard, Andrew Yang, and Marianne Williamson: 1 billionaire donor each
14. Bernie Sanders, Julian Castro, Bill De Blasio, and Tim Ryan: 0 billionaire donors

We all knew Joe Biden has always been a servant of Wall Street. What we did not know was who were the other stealth candidates for the rich. Pete Buttigieg, Corey Booker, and Kamala Harris are at the top of the list of the billionaires. A vote for them is a vote for redistributing income from the 99 percent to the billionaires.

Bernie, Julian Castro, Bill De Blasio, and Tim Ryan are the least favorite of the billionaires. A vote for them is a vote for the 99 percent.

Elizabeth Warren is the surprise here. She is a consistently ardent supporter of the 99 percent and an avowed enemy of the billionaires of Wall Street. Warren has received contributions from the wife of GitHub founder Tom Preston-Werner and from Susan Pritzker, the spouse of Hyatt heir Nicholas Pritzker, II.

The Billionaires and their Democratic Presidential Candidates–Forbes

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So It Begins: Bernie Sanders for U.S. President

Bernie Sanders announced he is running to be the Democratic Party nominee for United States president in 2020. The billionaires who control the national news media immediately began the negative coverage of Sanders.

The New York Times, for example, immediately published a story about how incompetent the Sanders campaign had been in getting its message out to African-American voters.

CNN broadcast a story about how it will be more difficult for Sanders to win the nomination in 2020 than it was in 2016. The argument is that Sanders is now running against women, suggesting in the process that Hillary Clinton, the most politically powerful female in US political history, was not a woman. Or perhaps the folks at CNN decided to overlook the fact that Clinton was and still is a woman, who raised more money and received more votes while running for president than anybody in United States and perhaps world history.

Expect more negative stories and broadcasts about Sanders. The billionaires and Wall Street executives fear Sanders more than any other candidate, with the possible exception of Elizabeth Warren.

Expect Joe Biden to become the billionaire/Wall Street Democratic candidate and to enter the race relatively soon. The big money will be behind Joe, as well as the corporate news media. We can expect no less from the billionaires in the race to put a man or a woman of the people in the white house. They will try to stop Sanders, Warren, or any progressive, for that matter.

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Conservative/Corporate Wing of the US Supreme Court Strikes Another Blow in the War Against the Middle Class

The billionaire-owned wing of the United States Supreme Court continued to lay siege to the United States Constitution and the legal rights of the 99 percent when it fired another vicious barrage of legalized theft in its latest unconstitutional legal ruling. The class warriors that appear to be owned by the billionaires are John Roberts, Neil Gorsuch, Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Anthony M. Kennedy.

As expected, the billionaire wing of the court ruled that non-labor union members cannot be forced in certain states to pay fees to labor unions representing public employees such as teachers and police, shutting off a key labor union revenue source.

The 5-4 ruling overturned a 1977 Supreme Court precedent that had permitted fees which have been collected from workers who decide not to join unions. Still, these people paid fees in lieu of union dues to fund non-political activities such as collective bargaining. The court’s billionaire-worshipping justices were in the majority, with the liberal justices dissenting.

These billionaire justices have consistently altered the meaning of the US Constitution to provide billionaires and millionaires and their corporations with more constitutional, political and economic power that is nowhere in the US Constitution. All of these rulings are unconstitutional. See The Activist Liars, Perjurers and Subverters of the US Constitution Sitting on the United States Supreme Court Are About to Launch Another of their Attacks Against the Middle Class on Behalf of Their Rich Backers.

Note that during his US Senate confirmation hearings, Chief Justice John Roberts swore under oath to respect legal precedence. Whenever an opportunity has come along to enrich conservative billionaires at the expense of the rest of us, and legal precedence has stood in the way, Roberts and the rest of the billionaire wing of the court have tossed it aside. Think about this. We have had a known perjurer as our US supreme court chief justice since the day Roberts was sworn into office.

Anyway, the Corporate wing of the court argued that forcing non-members to pay these fees to unions whose views they may oppose violates their rights to free speech and free association under the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment, the court said in the ruling authored by Justice Samuel Alito. Of course, a labor union is not an individual. It is an organization of people. People who apply for jobs which include labor union membership requirements are free to work elsewhere.

“States and public-sector unions may no longer extract agency fees from non-consenting employees,” billionaire class-warrior non-Justice Samuel Alito wrote. In a dissent, Justice Elena Kagan accused the court’s conservatives of “weaponizing the First Amendment” to intervene in economic and regulatory policy.

“This case was nothing more than a blatant political attack to further rig our economy and democracy against everyday Americans in favor of the wealthy and powerful,” public-sector unions including the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), the union directly involved in the case, said in a statement.

That’s precisely why the billionaire controlled Republican Party pushed these class warriors onto the court; to be weapons of mass legal destruction used by the billionaires in their war against the US Constitution and 99.8 percent of US citizens.

Two dozen states had required agency fees. The ruling means that the estimated 5 million non-union workers for state and local governments who have paid them can stop. Agency fees do not involve federal or private-sector employees.

The decision represented a major victory for billionaires who long have sought to curb the influence of public-sector unions, which often support the Democratic Party and liberal causes.

With the U.S. organized labor movement already in a diminished state compared to past decades, the ruling now deprives unions of a vital revenue stream, undercuts their ability to attract new members and retain current members, and undermines their ability to spend in political races.

Republican President Donald Trump, whose administration backed the challenge to the fees, welcomed the ruling, writing on Twitter, “Big loss for the coffers of the Democrats!”

Unions contend that mandatory agency fees are needed to eliminate the problem of what they call “free riders” – non-members who benefit from union representation, for example through salary and working conditions obtained in collective bargaining – without paying for it.

“There is no sugarcoating today’s opinion. The majority overthrows a decision entrenched in this nation’s law – and in its economic life – for over 40 years. As a result, it prevents the American people, acting through their state and local officials, from making important choices about workplace governance,” Kagan said.

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Racism: What the Billionaires Like to Brew

Racism is something the billionaires have us talking about rather than such mundane things as income, wealth and political inequality, as well as the disintegrating middle class. It’s easy for us to look at videos on Youtube of ordinary people being racist or to keep our eyes on things like cultural appropriation. Those things can hit us emotionally like a cruise missile, but keeping our eyes on those things is precisely what the billionaires and their political elite employees want us to do.

The last things the billionaires want us discussing among ourselves are bread and butter issues, like ever-growing income and wealth inequality and the obvious political corruption of both major political parties, as well as the corporate corruption of all three branches of the US government.

For the billionaires, it is as if the people who divert our attention from income, wealth and political inequality and toward issues like racism and cultural appropriation are on the payroll of the billionaires. It certainly makes me wonder. They have billions of dollars and can certainly pay people to post about racism and fire up people on Internet social networks.

It is easy to see the billionaire-owned corporate media focuses our attention on issues like racism, cultural appropriation and immigration and almost nothing on real issues such as income, political and wealth inequality. However, I am amazed so many people fall for this ruse, but they do.

Below is what the billionaires are protecting:

Currently, the 1 percent own more wealth than the bottom 90 percent of Americans, and six men possess more wealth than the bottom half of humanity on Earth. Worldwide, the 1 percent stole 82 percent of all new wealth produced in 2017. Those numbers are historical records and are still growing at the expense of the rest of us.  (Click here and click here for additional information on those statistics and sources).

Our record-breaking wealth inequality is fueled by record-breaking income inequality. Today, the 1 percent steal anywhere from 24 to 38 percent of all income produced in the USA, depending on which study you choose to use. This is up from 8 percent in 1980, and it is still growing at the expense of the rest of us.

But, hey, let’s talk about racism, and, we need to talk about transgender bathrooms, wars against Christmas, the war against women, Obama’s continuous war against guns and bullets, and don’t forget we desperately need to talk about the war against dirty diapers! And no! I am not on the payroll of the billionaires! Yet, I would be surprised if others were not.

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What The Billionaires and Their Corporate Media Don’t Want You to Know: Trump, the Tariffs, Wall Street and the Billionaires Who Control Both Major Political Parties

The rich and Wall Street executives have been quaking in their boots recently. Their Ponzi Schemes and bubbles known as the financial markets are in danger of collapsing. And it’s all because of President Donald Trump.

Trump is threatening to levy taxes on products made in China and exported to the USA. These taxes are called tariffs, and here’s what the corporate news media doesn’t want you to know. By doing this, Trump is also threatening to deflate the recent stock market bubble, which is the same thing as saying Trump is threatening to decrease by significant margins the income and wealth of the billionaires who control both major political parties in the United States.

Tariffs are taxes on goods being imported into the USA from foreign nations. US corporations export into the USA tens of billions of products manufactured in China, Vietnam, Mexico and other third world nations. Increased tariffs mean US corporations will need to raise the prices of their Chinese and other third world products, or lower their profit margins.

The profits of corporations are the primary component determining the prices of shares. When profits drop, especially in the long term, share prices fall. So the share price of say, Home Depot could fall from $176 a share to $14 a share. If you own millions of shares you lose quite a lot of money. This is why the threat of tariffs in steel and aluminum has roiled the US financial markets as of late. A lot of paper wealth is going to evaporate as stock prices drop should the tariffs be enacted. Dividends may decline, as well.

Tens of millions of US jobs have been exported from the US to China, Vietnam, India, Pakistan, Mexico, Honduras and elsewhere over the last twenty-five years. This has been done in order to jack up corporate profits by significantly reducing US labor and environmental costs. The difference between the old higher US wages and benefits and the new lower wages without benefits has gone straight into the already fat wallets and bank accounts of the superrich. They have used their ill-gotten gains to bid up the prices of corporate shares, gold, housing, commodities futures, and other investments.

President Trump’s threat to use tariffs against China and other nations means fewer dollars will go into the pockets of the rich if the tariffs are enacted. It also means potentially massive losses in the stock and maybe even bond markets.

Some corporations may even be inclined to export their jobs in China back to the United States if the tariffs are enacted. The middle class will benefit with additional jobs should this come about. In other words, the tariffs could redistribute income from the rich back into the pockets of the 99 percent, and this is something the billionaires will not allow their corporate media outlets to tell you. The proposed tariffs are limited, and therefore will not have much of an impact, but they will have some positive benefits to the US 99 percent.

Currently, six men own more wealth than the bottom 50 percent of the world’s people (See https://johnhively.wordpress.com/2017/02/23/six-men-own-more-wealth-than-the-bottom-50-percent-of-human-kind/). In the USA, the 1 percent own more wealth than the bottom 90 percent for the first time in US history (See https://johnhively.wordpress.com/2017/12/03/in-the-united-states-the-1-percent-now-own-more-wealth-than-the-bottom-90-percent-for-the-first-time-in-us-history/). In the United States, the 1 percent steal as much as 35 percent of the income produced in the USA every year, up from 8 percent in 1979.

Trump’s tariffs will likely put tiny brakes on the continuously growing inequality of wealth and income produced by free trade agreements. Those brakes will likely only slow down the growing income and wealth inequality rather than halting or reversing them. But the tariffs would be a beginning to reversing the massive income and wealth inequality which the rich have successfully conspired to produce over the last thirty-seven years.

A few other things are in order. The USA has the fifteen to twenty largest trade deficits in world history. That means the US imports more goods than it exports. Our largest trade deficit is not with China, as the media claims. In reality, the largest US trade deficit is with US corporations that have exported tens of millions of US jobs overseas. The purpose of exporting tens of millions of US jobs has been to redistribute trillions of dollars from US workers to the rich, avoid US pollution controls (thereby increasing profits),  and avoid US health and safety regulations.

What American Presidents Have To Say About Tariffs:

“America’s growth and future depend on trade. But we would insist on trade that is fair and free. We are always willing to be trade partners but never trade patsies”. President John F. Kennedy.

“Protection, which guards and develops our industries, is a cardinal policy of the Republican Party. The measure of protection should always at least equal the difference in the cost of production at home and abroad.” President Theodore Roosevelt

“A wise tariff protects American industries and manufacture. It encourages growth and enterprise among our own people. It opens our mines, it erects our machine shops, our furnaces and factories”.
President William Mckinley

It Was Good Enough For Kennedy, Roosevelt & McKinley. Why Isn’t It For Congress?

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The Billionaires Made So Much Money in 2017 They Could End Extreme Poverty in the World Seven Times Over

The golden rule is at work; he who has the gold makes the rules that determine income and wealth distribution. That is why income inequality has grown so enormous worldwide. The rich are getting wealthier while the rest of us toil in financial purgatory, even the European and US middle class.

The golden rule is also why the global economy created a record number of billionaires last year, exacerbating inequality amid a weakening of workers’ rights and a corporate push to maximize shareholder returns, charity organization Oxfam International said in a new report.

The folks at Oxfam define severe poverty as those people living on $1.25 or less a day. and according to Oxfam estimates, about 1/3 of the world’s population lives at or below that level.

The world’s 2043 billionaires saw their wealth surge by $762 billion, which is enough money to end extreme poverty seven times over, according to Oxfam.

According to separate data compiled by Bloomberg, the top 500 billionaires’ net worth (wealth) grew 24% to $5.38 trillion in 2017, while the world’s richest person, Amazon.com Inc.’s Jeff Bezos, saw a gain of $33.7 billion.

“The billionaire boom is not a sign of a thriving economy but a symptom of a failing economic system,” said Winnie Byanyima, executive director of Oxfam International. “The people who make our clothes, assemble our phones and grow our food are being exploited.” Those people are also the folks without the gold with which to purchase political power in the so-called democracies of the world.

Oxfam had published the report as global leaders, chief executives and bankers arrived in Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting. This is an event in which the rich of the world share plans of how to rip the rest of us off. A spokesperson for Oxfam, however, noted “that many of the world’s elite say they’re concerned about income inequality, but most governments are “shamefully failing” to improve the matter. That’s because the politicians managing the affairs of those governments are being paid to do nothing to rectify growing poverty throughout the world, and they are being paid to ensure the billionaires gain more and more of the world’s income and wealth. This is called corruption.

Oxfam called on governments to limit shareholder and executive returns while ensuring workers receive a living wage. It also recommended eliminating the gender pay gap and raising taxes on the wealthy, among other suggestions.”

“People are ready for change,” Byanyima said. “They want a limit on the power and the wealth which sits in the hands of so few.” In addition, p0eople want to limit the effects of the golden rule which allows the rich to control the distribution of income and wealth and send into their bank accounts the vast majority of income and wealth created.

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