When the Dust Clears…the Rich Have Been Redistributing $2.5 trillion Every Year for the Last Twenty-Five Years

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What will occur when the Covid-19 vaccine is fully distributed? What will happen if President Biden gets his stimulus? The assumed answer to both questions is that the economy will enter a business expansion, things will return to normal, and everything will be peachy. Maybe and maybe not.

Nearly 100,000 U.S. businesses disappeared from March to December 2020. Gross domestic product has dropped in the last three quarters. Despite the CARES Act and the last stimulus, the number of people applying for first time unemployment benefits has exploded to nearly one million people during each of the last two weeks, compared to less than 360,000 during the height of the Great Recession.

The underlying economy has been gutted by the billionaires, leaving a dying carcass in the place of a once healthy economy. According to a study by Carter Price of the Rand Corporation, the rich have been redistributing $2.5 trillion from the 99 percent to themselves on average for the last twenty-five years using their hired hands in government, which includes Mitch McConnell, Rand Paul, Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden and Wall Street’s favorite U.S. senator, Ron Wyden, who is appropriately the only U.S. senator to be called a “Useful Idiot” by a Nobel Prize winning economist in an op-ed in the New York Times.

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A perfect example of this political corruption is the CARES Act signed into law on March 27, 2020. Congressional leaders made certain the billionaires were due to receive $4.994 trillion from the $2.2 trillion stimulus bill. You read that right. The $2.2 trillion included $454 billion for large corporations, allegedly in loans. The rich receive 66 percent to 100 percent of their income and wealth from, you guessed it, corporations. The bill was written with a proviso that the Federal Reserve could print up to ten times $454 billion and lend the total of $4.994 trillion with a nod and a wink to large corporations ($4.54 trillion + $454 billion = $4.994 trillion). The real total amount of the $2.2 trillion CARES Act was $6.74 trillion ($4.994 trillion + $2.2 trillion – 454 billion). 

The combined profits of all US corporations in 2018 and 2019 were slightly over $4 trillion before taxes. The rich and their corporations, in other words, were getting more than two years’ worth of profits from the stimulus bill. Naturally, the stock market exploded as massive amounts of money was funneled to them through their corporations. The CARES Act, however, failed to authorize the Fed to loan money to those who truly needed it; to stay in the homes and put food on their tables, which would have also strengthened the underlying economy.

The CARES Act gave the 99 percent, numbering about 314,685,000 citizens, $1.75 trillion (about $5500 each on average) to help keep the economy afloat while the roughly 300,000 wealthiest shared close to $5 trillion, which comes out to a little over $16.6 million each.

Nearly 36 million people were thrown out of work from March to May 2020, and the best congress that money has bought saved the billionaires and threw crumbs at the rest of us.

There are numerous political ways the billionaires have used to redistribute income from us to them. Millions of U.S. jobs have been exported over the last forty years, for example, and the difference between the old high U.S wages and benefits and the new lower wages-only compensation in China, Vietnam, Mexico, Pakistan and elsewhere have gone straight into the pockets of the billionaires, thanks to their might-as-well-be-hired employees in the congress, the white house, and the supreme court.

Thus, there is no guarantee the economy will return to normal when the coronavirus is gone and the next stimulus has run its course. The impacts of every recession has gotten worse for the 99 percent because at least $50 trillion has been redistributed from 99 to the 1 percent over the last twenty-five years, depressing the demand for goods and services in the process. The top one percent are now stealing roughly 22 to 39 percent of all income produced in the United States, up from 8 percent in 1979. This trend has not been and will not be reversed with the political corruption in play. In reality, this trend has been exacerbated by the CARES Act.

So when the dust clears, and the virus is gone, there is no guarantee the economy will bounce out of this recession, which may prove to be another Depression. So maybe it will, but then maybe not.

• For more on the Carter Price study, click or copy and paste, https://www.rand.org/blog/2020/10/a-25-trillion-question-what-if-incomes-grew-like-gdp.html

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How Stupid Are the RepubliCons? It’s all about the economy stupid!

U.S. Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell must be as stupid as U.S. Senator’s Rand Paul and Ted Cruz. Paul and Cruz oppose the U.S. House of Representatives Heroes bill sponsored by the Democratic Party that will continue to provide $600 a week to the unemployed until January, as well as tens of billions of dollars to cities and states that are experiencing reduced tax dollars and will likely need to lay off tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands or more, of public employees without further Federal aid.

Many Republican senators are opposed to the HEROES Act because it will not reward their billionaire owners to the same degree the CARES Act did, and which gave the superrich and their corporations $4.75 trillion in a $2.2 trillion bill. (Click here for that story.)

McConnell, appearing to be a dimwit, does not understand the issue that will decide the election in November. “It’s the economy stupid,” James Carville used to say. Carville was Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign manager in 1992. They won the election in 1992.

“We swears to serve the master of the precious.”

The U.S. economy is tanking big time. The only thing stopping the economy from further falling and moving into a Great Depression is the CARES Act, one of whose most important provisions for the 99 percent is about to expire. That provision is the $600 a week extra in unemployment benefits.

McConnell does not understand the economy needs people to spend money to keep it afloat. He opposes the $600 extra a week because some people are receiving more money than they were earning at their jobs, giving them an incentive to not look for work. Who cares? That $600 dollars is helping to keep the economy afloat, and there are not a whole bunch of available jobs out there right now anyway.

When cities, counties and states begin to lay off employees by the tens of thousands, along with those folks on unemployment who will stop receiving that $600 at the end of this month, the economy will likely move into a Great Depression, if we have not already done so.

The result will be a Democratic Party wave in November. Then it is likely the Republican Party will begin its fade into the history books as more and younger voters have become Bernie style Democratic Socialists, which is to say New Deal Democrats. McConnell and the rest of the Republican senators are about to send their political party into historical oblivion after voting to reward their billionaire backers $4.75 trillion while providing the vast majority of U.S. citizens crumbs with the CARES Act last March.

Meanwhile, U.S. House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi decided to placate her Party’s base by sponsoring the Heroes Act, but not that saving the base and the economy from ruin was something she actually wanted to do. The Heroes Act is the fourth stimulus package since March and her attempts to save the billionaires who control her Party and neglect the financial needs of the 99 percent is most obvious by this fact alone. Something must have clicked in her brain to come up with the HEROES Act.

She likely came to understand saving the economy and the billionaires from ruin means having to save the rest of us. McConnell, Rand Paul and “tiny hands” Ted Cruz have not figured out this basic economic issue yet even as Texas, the state Cruz represents, is rapidly turning blue along with Virginia, North Carolina, and several other states the Republican Party reliably once controlled.

When these states turn blue, this will eliminate the Republican Party as a factor in national politics. This has already occurred on several state levels. The Republican Party used to control California. Now it is the super minority party in both of California’s legislative houses. McConnell, Cruz and Paul are hastening the Party’s decline by their economic stupidity. It’s the economy stupid!

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Four Graphs that Will Make You Boiling Mad About the Trans Pacific Partnership–Or Why President Trump, former President Obama, along with executives from Nike, Microsoft, Apple and other US corporations Steadfastly Support China’s Currency Manipulations

Originally published May 19, 2015 by John Hively

When China manipulates its currency vis-a-vis the US dollar it increases the profits of US job exporters that produce stuff in China and exports that cheap stuff to the USA.

That’s most likely why former President Obama said he will veto any congressional legislation that seeks to stop the Chinese government from manipulating its currency.

Why do President Obama and executives of US based multinational corporations, like Nike, want the Chinese government to manipulate its currency? And what does this have to do with the Trans Pacific Partnership and Fast Track Authority?

The answer to one of these questions is simple: the TPP will force China to manipulate its currency even more than is currently the case.

Take a look at the graph below. On the left side is the Yuan, which is the Chinese currency. On the bottom line is the dollar. Now look at the two intersecting lines, which is the supply and demand for dollars. In this example, 600 yuan can purchase $100 in the currency markets, which is roughly what the two currencies currently exchange for.

So when Nike, Microsoft or Apple Inc. manufacture a product in China that costs the consumers, say, 600 yuan in China, given the exchange rate, the same product will cost $100 in the United States, after, of course, it is exported from China to the USA. Assume these US corporations have a 25% profit margin. That means these companies get 150 Y profits in China per product, and $25 profit when they export their products to the United States.

The same is true for companies that manufacture products in the USA, and then export them to China. American manufacturing companies earn $25 per $100 of product sold in the USA, and 150 Y when their products are exported from the USA to China.

The government of China has been accused of manipulating the value of its currency. So what happens when it does this? It purchases dollars. This shifts the D1 line to the left, because there are less dollars on the market, which is shown in the graph below as line D2. This makes the Yuan less expensive in terms of dollars.

Why would President Obama encourage the Chinese government to manipulate its currency by threatening to veto US legislation aimed at stopping it? Why would Wall Street Senator Ron Wyden only pay lip service to the evil of Chinese currency manipulation, while apparently supporting it? Why are the higher up folks at Nike, Microsoft, Apple and every US corporation that is producing goods in China for export to the United States against any legislation that seeks to address Chinese currency manipulation? There is a very good reason they’re all for this.

Look at the example in the next graph below. When the Chinese government manipulates it’s currency by purchasing dollars, 800 Y will now purchase $75. Do the math; 600 Y will purchase now $56. What does that mean?

It means that when Nike manufactures a pair of shoes in China which costs 600 Y there, in the US it should cost $56 rather than $100, thanks to China’s currency manipulation, but that rarely happens. The US corporate propaganda machine will lie to you and tell you it makes Chinese imports less expensive. However, the truth is that China’s  manipulation increases the profits of Nike.

Nike still gets 25%, or 150 Y, in profits when its shoes are sold in China. When it exports the same shoes to the USA from China, Nike still gets 25% profit on $56, which is $14 dollars. However, Nike still sells it’s shoes for $100 in the United States, which means another $44 in earnings per pair, in addition to the $14.

That means Nike’s profit margin on a $100 pair of shoes goes from 25% at the old exchange rate to 58% at the new exchange rate. This sends its earnings and stock prices higher. The same thing occurs with Microsoft, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Apple, and every US corporation manufacturing in China, that are exporting their products to the United States.

So who pays the price for this?

You do; if you work for a living in the United States, or if you’re a  small or medium size business owner. Here’s how. Suppose you are a US manufacturer producing shoes in Oregon that sell in the USA for $100. You ship them to China at 600 Y for $100, and earn 150 Y, or $25, in profits. Now suppose the Chinese government, with the encouragement of your corrupt government and many US business leaders, manipulates its currency by purchasing tens of billions upon tens of billions of dollars. The supply of dollars on the international currency markets shrinks, making dollars more expensive, and as noted above, the D1 line shifts to D2, which represents the new supply of money. BTW, the space between D1 and D2 represents the amount of dollars the Chinese purchased.

Those $100 US made shoes now costs 1000 Y in China. Okay, my graph isn’t too high tech, but the actual figure is 1066 Y, if you do the math, but let’s stick with the 1000 Y, for simplicity sake. There’s still a 25% profit margin per pair of shoes, but at the 1000 Y price, there’s not a whole lot of buyers in China. The US manufacturer could lower the price of the shoes to 750 Y, but he or she isn’t making a penny at that price, and they’re still overpriced for the Chinese market. Say goodbye to the Chinese market for all US products at the new exchange rate.

US exports to China are going to shrink quite rapidly under this scenario. This means fewer American jobs, and less wages for everyone. It means less tax dollars going to schools and other government services, it means no retirement pay for a larger percentage of the 99 percent. Rich folks don’t need the money they’re going to steal from us, except to keep the latest stock market bubble surging, at least until it pops. However, greater profits mean the bubble can keep expanding for a while longer.

So how can US corporate leaders and their corrupt politicians encourage the Chinese government to manipulate its currency even more than it already has?

The scams that have been created to do this are called the Trans Pacific Partnership and Fast Track Authority. So what do these two things have to do with Chinese currency manipulation? More importantly, why would the Chinese

government want to engage in currency manipulation?

The answer in one word; Vietnam.

Vietnam is one of the nation’s involved in negotiating the Trans Pacific Partnership. As you can see from the graph below, China’s annual minimum wage is nearly twice that of Vietnam. The wages in China at those Nike and Microsoft and Apple and Hewlett-Packard factories and their suppliers and contractors and subcontractors have been going up rapidly over the past fifteen years. Those labor costs have been able to go up because the Chinese government has increased the profit margins of its US manufacturers by manipulating its currency. But there’s another reason why China needs to manipulate its currency vis-a-vis the dollar.

As you can see from the map below, there are nearly 313,000 Nike workers toiling in Vietnam, and nearly 250,00 in China. Vietnam clearly has lower labor costs than those in China. The Chinese government, however, can offset its labor cost disadvantage by manipulating its currency. So it can keep those jobs in China, and still allow the wages of Chinese workers to expand. But that might not be the case should the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) become a reality.

Tariff is another word for tax. When a US company like Nike manufactures its products in Vietnam, and then exports them to the US, a tariff is charged against the products of between 10 and 15 percent. So another $10 to $15 dollars is added to the cost of a $100 pair of Nike’s Vietnamese made shoes exported to the USA. That means less profits, lower dividends, and lower share prices than would otherwise be the case without tariffs. The US tariffs on US corporate goods manufactured in Vietnamese factories helps to offset some of the Vietnamese labor cost advantages vis-a-vis the cost of Chinese labor.

Under the TPP, should it become law, those tariffs will likely be gone, giving Vietnam a much larger labor cost advantage over Chinese workers.

In which case, the Chinese government will have two options; let millions of Nike and Dell and Apple and Microsoft jobs head south to Vietnam, along with the jobs of contractors and subcontractors, or manipulate its currency even more, which means all of those US corporations manufacturing stuff in China for export to the US will see unprecedented and explosive growth of their profits; and all of this will occur at the expense of small and medium sized US companies that make stuff in the United States and export them to China.

That means several unpleasant things will occur to the US economy: US unemployment will grow with the TPP, as exports to China diminish, inequality in wealth and income will continue to increase during the reign of Obama and Wyden, the stock market bubble will continue to expand, the coming stock market crash will be even worse than imaginable, US businesses will need to export more US jobs to China, and all of these bad things will trickle down to more crowded classrooms, less government services, reduced wages, fewer jobs, more poverty, and much more negative stuff for the 99 percent. However, the super rich will become even more super rich. And Chinese currency manipulation will not be the only thing in the TPP contributing to all of these things. See https://johnhively.wordpress.com/2015/04/21/how-the-trans-pacific-partnership-will-destroy-american-jobs-by-destroying-us-exports/

The political game in the US over the TPP and Fast Track Authority currently being played out is a complete farce.

Start with Fast Track Authority, which President Obama, Nike, Microsoft, Ron Wyden, Orrin Hatch, Mitch McConnell and just about every major US corporate CEO and investor desperately want Obama to have. Fast track will limit congressional debate on trade deals, it will scuttle any possible congressional amendments, and eliminate the use of the filibuster in the senate to stop the TPP. Fast track needs to pass through both houses of congress.

As a condition for bringing Fast Track Authority to a debate on the floor of the US senate, on May 13, a number of Democrats who traditionally vote to redistribute income from the 99 to the 1 percent (Ron Wyden, Harry Reid, Patty Murray, Heidi Heitkamp, Bill Nelson, Tim Kaine, Claire McCaskell, and Ben Cardin) agreed to first bring a vote for a bill by which the US will crackdown somehow on China for manipulating currency.

These folks know such a bill may not pass the senate, much less the house of representatives. If it did pass, then it will sit on Obama’s desk until Fast Track Authority passes both chambers of congress. Then he will veto the currency manipulation bill. There’s a ton of income to be redistributed from the 99 to the 1 percent resting on his shoulders.

Then the above senators will pretend to the folks back home that they did all that they could, when in fact, they did nothing when they could have done something to protect the folks back home from the TPP.

Every US senator and every US house representative knows this is the game, and many are willing to play this deadly game so as to justify their support for giving President Obama Fast Track Authority, even though the TPP will likely rip out the guts of the middle class, as well as the US economy.

If the above named Democrats were at all serious about Chinese currency manipulation, then they would agree to wait until Wall Street President Barack Obama signed the bill into law before opening debate on fast track authority.  That won’t happen.

Fast Track Authority is the only way the president can ram the TPP through congress. It’s an income and political power redistribution agreement falsely marketed as a trade agreement. Most of those in the know say the TPP is dead if the president doesn’t receive fast track authority. So fast track is the key.

Save the United States. Fight against this madness called Fast Track Authority. The TPP will only create greater trade deficits in the future than is currently the case. As US Congressman Alan Grayson famously and recently said, “You will find that the largest fourteen trade deficits in the history of the world have been the US trade deficits in each of the last fourteen years….What sane person can look at these trade deficits and conclude we need more free trade?”

The political fight over the Trans Pacific Partnership, Fast Track Authority, and Chinese currency manipulation isn’t about sanity; it’s about greed and government corruption. It’s about raising the already soaring share prices, dividends and earnings of US corporations that have exported millions of US jobs to China and other third world nations, and doing so at the expense of everybody else. It’s about redistributing your standard of living to a small minority of overly rich people who have corrupted and rigged your government in favor of themselves. It’s about redistributing your income and wealth to the 1 percent so as to keep the current stock market bubble expanding. It’s about redistributing the American dream to the 1 percent. It’s about taking the opportunities that once existed for the majority of American citizens and wiping them out by giving 100 percent of all income growth to the 1 percent, and leaving more and more people in poverty.

Currently, the 1 percent steal 37 percent of all income produced in the United States compared to 8 percent in 1980, back when opportunities for financial advancement existed for most Americans. Now the big boys, and the politicians they’ve bought off in one way or the other, want to eliminate your opportunities, as well as those of your children.

Call your senators. Call your congressmen and congresswomen. Stop Fast Track in the senate. Stop the corruption. Stop the insanity.

Over the past fourteen years, since China was granted most favored nation trade status, Nike’s stock price has risen over a thousand percent, from $10 a share to over a $100. Chinese currency manipulation has helped fuel this bubble. So if you purchased a million shares of Nike in the year 2000, today the value of those shares would be over $10 million. With the TPP and Chinese currency manipulation, the value of Nike’s stock will continue to increase, but only at the expense of everybody else. Much of the US stock market bubble is fueled by the same force, and that goes for the stock prices of Apple, Microsoft, Dell, Adidas, Hewlett-Packard and more. And if the TPP goes through, more US manufacturers will need to shift production to China.

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Capitalism and Democracy: Year-End Lessons

In the USA, money reigns over democracy more and more. Politicians ignore the will of the majority whenever it pleases them and the parasites of the 1 percent. That includes their politicians, such as Wall Street Senator Ron Wyden, a notorious liar and servant of Wall Street. He is supposed to represent the interests of the people of Oregon, but he never does when it is at cross purposes with his masters of Wall Street. The corporate propaganda machine defends Wyden by creating illusions about what he is and what he does, rather than the truth. In that way, they keep our eyes off the prize of the American dream that Wyden is constantly redistributing to the parasites of the 1 percent via federal legislation. This makes Wyden, as well as such Wall Street politicians as John Boehner, Rand Paul, Mitch McConnell, and about 90 percent of the US senate and House of Representatives nothing but parasites of the 1 percent. That’s why it’s a rigged game against the 99 percent, and there are plenty of examples of how democracy is nothing more than an illusion any more.

According to economist Richard Wolff, “2013 drove home a basic lesson: US capitalism’s economic leaders and their politicians now regularly ignore majority opinions and preferences. For example, polls showed overwhelming popular support for higher taxes on the rich with lower taxes on the rest of us and for reversing the nation’s deepening economic inequalities. Yet Republicans and Democrats, including President Obama, raised payroll taxes sharply on January 1, 2013. Those taxes are regressive; they take a smaller percentage of your income the higher your income is above $113,700 per year. Raising the payroll tax increased economic inequality across 2013.”

Click on the link below for more of this story.

Capitalism and Democracy: Year-End Lessons–Z Communications

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Inequality: An Essential Reader | The Poverty Line, What Matters Today | BillMoyers.com

According to Bill Moyers, “As we near the end of 2013, it suddenly seems everyone’s talking about inequality. Earlier this month, Barack Obama spoke of a “relentless decades-long trend” of “dangerous and growing inequality and lack of upward mobility.” Around the same time, in a papal exhortation, Pope Francis wrote, “Just as the commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill’ sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say ‘thou shalt not’ to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills.” And a month earlier in New York — the most unequal big city in the US — Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio won a landslide victory campaigning on the issue.

But just how bad is American inequality? How did we arrive at this new Gilded Age? And how might we create an economy of broadly shared prosperity?

If you’ve got questions, we’ve (hopefully) got the answers in this Essential Reader…”

One thing that needs to be addressed when it comes to inequality is what nobody seems to be talking about. Inequality has been brought about government legislation that redistributes income from the 99 to the 1 percent. This process of corrupting government at all levels began with a variety of tax cuts to the rich and corporations under President Ronald Reagan, and which has enabled them to buy the legislation that redistributes income from the 99 to the 1 percent, and resulted in the complete  corruption of federal and state governments and politicians, such as Wall Street Senators Ron Wyden, Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul. This includes legislation that has weakened union organizing efforts, such as the passing of right-to-work-for-less laws, as well as free trade treaties, privatization scams, and other vicious attacks against the 99 percent.

Check out the link below for the complete story.

Inequality: An Essential Reader | The Poverty Line, What Matters Today | BillMoyers.com.

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How Stupid is Wall Street Senator Rand Paul?

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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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Is Republican Senator Rand Paul as Stupid as He Seems?

Many Republican politicians appear to be as dumb and as ignorant as bricks. Michelle Bachman readily comes to mind. She’s a stereotypical dumb blonde. So is Rand Paul. We hear a lot about Republican politicians lying quite a bit more than their Democratic Party counterparts, but maybe it’s because the Republican base simply prefers ignorant buffoons like Rand Paul, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan and John “Bug Killer” Boehner (pronounced Boner”).

In the video below, Rand makes a ridiculous claim that is easily refuted; he claimed the number of government jobs has increased under Obama’s watch, when in fact, they’ve decreased by 600,000. So maybe Republicans don’t try to lie as much as it appears, maybe some of the time they’re just ignorant and stupid.

By the way, I may not agree with him all the time, but Ron Paul is one of the smartest and knowledgeable guys in the Republican party and in congress, but he’s really a Libertarian disguised as a Republican.

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