New Study Shows the Top 1 Percent Stole 82 Percent of the World’s Newly Created Wealth in 2017

Adam Smith, the founder of modern capitalist economics, argued in his 1776 masterpiece The Wealth of Nations that labor created all wealth. This has been hideously distorted by the political golden rule; he who has the power makes the rules. The idle rich are now wallowing in unprecedented wealth according to a new report from the charity Oxfam. The report found that the world’s richest 1 percent raked in 82 percent of the wealth created last year while the poorest half of the world’s population received none.

In addition, the study found “the wealth of billionaires has grown six times faster than that of ordinary workers since 2010, with another billionaire minted every two days between March 2016 and March 2017.”

Oxfam used its findings to paint a picture of a global economy in which the wealthy few amass ever-greater fortunes while hundreds of millions of people are “struggling to survive on poverty pay”.

“The billionaire boom is not a sign of a thriving economy but a symptom of a failing economic system,” Oxfam executive director Winnie Byanyima said in a statement.

Oxfam also emphasized the plight of women workers, who “consistently earn less than men” and often have the lowest paid, least secure jobs. Nine out of 10 billionaires are men, the authors added.

The report, titled “Reward Work, not Wealth”, used data from Credit Suisse to compare the returns of top executives and shareholders to that of ordinary workers.

It found that chief executives of the top five global fashion brands made in just four days what garment workers in Bangladesh earn over a lifetime.

“The people who make our clothes, assemble our phones and grow our food are being exploited to ensure a steady supply of cheap goods, and swell the profits of corporations and billionaire investors,” Byanyima said.

To fight rising inequality, Oxfam called on governments to limit the returns of shareholders and top executives, close the gender pay gap, crack down on tax avoidance and increase spending on healthcare and education.

The study was released on the eve of top political and business figures meeting at a luxury Swiss ski resort for the annual World Economic Forum, which this year says it will focus on how to create “a shared future in a fractured world”. However, nothing will come of this.

“It’s hard to find a political or business leader who doesn’t say they are worried about inequality,” said Byanyima.

“It’s even harder to find one who is doing something about it. Many are actively making things worse by slashing taxes and scrapping labor rights.”

The top 1 percent are able to do these things and increase their wealth and income because of their control over the political processes in most nations. This is particularly true in the United States where corruption on an unprecedented scale in the post-World War II era permeates every sector of government and both major political parties.

Wall Street’s US Senator Ron Wyden is a perfect example of this. Supposedly a liberal Democrat representing the state of Oregon, Wyden has voted nearly every time to redistribute income and wealth from the 99 to the 1 percent except when the billionaires who control the Democratic party want to appear as though they oppose the billionaires who control the Republican Party and the Republican scams to redistribute income and wealth from the 99 to the 1 percent, such as Donald Trump’s recent tax cuts for corporations and the rich.

Wyden has voted to export tens of millions US jobs, on the one hand, while voicing support for liberal social issues. The corporate press and Wyden always emphasize what a great liberal he is without never mentioning that Wyden is one of the legislative architects of today’s unprecedented income and wealth inequality in the United States.

When US jobs are exported the difference between the old higher US wages and benefits and the new poverty wage benefits goes straight into the pockets of the rich via higher corporate profits, rising share prices and surging dividends. Wyden knows this, and shows his support for doing this by having a 100 percent record on voting to export tens of millions of US jobs.

The result of Wyden’s actions have been an economic system powered by a variety of bubbles, rather than actual real growth.

The latest stock market bubble will soon pop and with devastating consequences for the nation and the world. Just remember Wyden’s corruption has been a key factor in all of this and is a shining example of most Democrats in power and nearly all Republicans.

The last thing to be said about this issue is why the rich need to get richer. We have an international economic system powered by the link between corporations and high finance. Corporations, as I show in The Rigged Game, need fairly consistent ever-increasing profits in order to keep their stock prices rising. Failure to do this results in declining stock prices, if not an outright collapse in stock prices. In other words, the corporate economic system is something of a Ponzi scheme.

Click to access bp-reward-work-not-wealth-220118-en.pdf

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The Federal Reserve Decision on Maintaining Historic Low Interest Rates, 35 Years of Income redistribution, and the Coming Great Decession

The governors of the Federal Reserve Bank voted to keep interest rates at historic lows in their September 17, 2015 meeting. The bank has not raised interest rates in nearly a decade. Lucky us, or maybe unlucky us.

Chairwoman Janet Yellen cited a number of reasons why the bank decided to keep rates low. She mentioned, for example, the weakness of manufacturing in China.

However, she didn’t mention that nearly 50 percent of US manufacturing is done in China, which, quite naturally, indicates a slowing down of US outsourced manufacturing, which certainly impacts the US. Like a good politician, she also did not mention that the evil US trade deficit is fueled by US manufacturers exporting jobs overseas, like Microsoft, Apple, Nike and Adidas. These and hundreds of other companies manufacture their products in China and elsewhere, and export their stuff to the US.

This is precisely and the only reason why the US has a trade deficit. The US trade deficit, in other words, is with US job exporters, not with China, Pakistan, Mexico or elsewhere.

Anyway, keeping interest rates low was a good thing for the US economy. Typically, the Fed waits to raise interest rates until just after the US economy begins to slide into recession.

That process begins when US corporations see a slowdown in their earnings growth, in the aggregate. These businesses begin to lay people off, which jacks up their profits. Perhaps the folks running the Fed take this as some sort of sacred signal that everything is all right. However, laying enough people off throughout the economy ignites recessions in the process of jacking up those profits, because the demand for goods and services slackens, jobs and profits decline, and a recession begins even while corporate earnings expand.

This is why I mentioned the slowdown of Chinese manufacturing, which in all likelihood, represents something of a slowdown of US manufacturing abroad. Profit growth has been shaky the last two years, though still growing in fits and spurts with sudden quarterly declines followed by rapid growth.

In other words, the US and world economies are still quite weak, especially since the rich have stolen 95 percent of all income growth in the US since 2009, an historic high by a wide margin. This has meant sluggish US and world economic growth since the more money the 1 percent steal in the US and elsewhere, the weaker the demand for goods and services by the 99 percent.

Yellen has the brains to understand all of this. This is likely why the Fed has kept interest rates at historic lows for years. To maintain their standards of living, the 99 percent had to keep borrowing because they haven’t gotten a raise in 35 years on average and in real terms. Raise interest rates and the demand for goods and services begins to die.

Raising interest rates will likely be the straw that sends the world economy into the monstrous fangs of the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression. This crisis may already be in its early less visible stages.

Not a single world leader has learned the lesson from the last Recession. The current US economic expansion is fueled by the same artificially created housing and stock market bubbles as the last recession. Wall Street executives are calling the economic shots in the White House, on Capital Hill and the US Supreme Court. That’s why nobody who could do anything did squat about the corrupt forces that brought about last recession, and now the bill is coming due.

The last recession was the worst since the Great Depression. The next one, as I have pointed out in my book, The Rigged Game: Corporate America and a People Betrayed, will be far more hideous.

The Fed has literally no tools to fight off this coming Great Depression, but it will print trillions of dollars to save billionaires and others from their foolish investment decisions. See breakdown-of-the-26-trillion-the-federal-reserve-handed-out-to-save-rich-incompetent-investors-but-who-purchase-political-power–JohnHively.wordpress.com

The federal government will be forced to expand the deficit, and instead of having 48 million people permanently on food stamps, the US will have 60 to 100 million, unless the madness of redistributing income from the 99 to the 1 percent via job exporting trade treaties, unsustainable and illogical immigration policies (both legal and illegal, HB1 visas), and privatization scams.

Much of this can be reversed simply by amending income redistribution schemes known as international trade agreements, limiting immigration by restricting the flow of people moving into the USA at least until wages begin to rise, enforcing current immigration laws, and putting a halt and reversing many privatization follies.

All three of these policies have stolen jobs from American citizens, while enriching the politically and financially affluent in the process, all at the expense of people who produce goods and services.

Of course, that is precisely what the corrupt US government (all three branches), and both corrupt major political parties, have been driven to do by the money unleashed in the political markets since and because of the Reagan tax cuts for the rich.

The ultimate end game of Reaganomics is coming to its ugly conclusion.

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Outsourcing the American Dream, While Redistributing the American Dream to the Super Rich

Nabisco Corporation is the maker of Oreo cookies. Nabisco’s CEO has decided the best way to increase corporate profits is to lower wages. So she has authorized the shipping of 600 jobs in Chicago to lower wage Mexico. The difference between the old higher US wages, and the new lower Mexican wages, will go straight into the pockets of mostly rich shareholders and, of course, Rosenfeld’s wallet, as well. This will be achieved via rising Nabisco profits, surging share prices, and soaring dividends. The losers of those jobs will be lucky to get unemployment insurance for a while, until they get a new, lower paying job, if they’re lucky.

This scenario has been replayed over and over again, ever since NAFTA was enacted. NAFTA has redistributed trillions of dollars from the 99 to the 1 percent over and over again. The 1 percent used to steal only 8 percent of all income created in the United States. Now they’re robbing the rest of us blind, and this Oreo cookie (loaded with GMOs by the way) debacle is just one minor example of how income redistribution scams like NAFTA have played out.

President Obama and his henchmen, such as Wall Street Senator’s Mitch McConnell, Ron Wyden and Orrin Hatch, is pressing to resume negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the largest income redistribution scam of all time. It’s falsely being labeled as a free trade agreement.

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House Democrats Vow to Fight Obama and His Redistribution of Income From the 99 to the 1 Percent Via the Trans Pacific Partnership Scheme

The Washington Post reports that, “House Democrats from the nation’s manufacturing heartland are vowing to fight President Obama’s push for a major trade deal in the Asia Pacific, saying the pact will harm U.S. jobs and charging that the administration has not been transparent with Congress in its negotiations.

“The administration refuses to change its approach to secret negotiations and is pushing to send a final package to Congress with almost no ability for us to scrutinize it,” Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) said Monday on a conference call with reporters. “Enough is enough: no more offshoring, no more NAFTA-style trade deals.”

Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) said that unless the administration made significant changes to the proposed deal, including new protections on currency manipulation, Democrats would “fight the administration tooth and nail on this.”

The opposition from Obama’s own party, and a significant portion of his liberal base, has presented a conundrum for the White House as it pursues the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which is the economic centerpiece of the administration’s strategy to re-balance U.S. attention and resources to Asia. Negotiators from the 12 countries are in Washington this week for another round of talks in hopes of making progress toward an agreement in principle this coming spring.

White House advisers said they believe there could be more support for the trade pact in the new Congress because Republicans, who will take control of the Senate, are generally more supportive of free trade agreements. Last week, Obama touted the pact during an appearance with business leaders in Washington, calling on opponents not to “fight the last war” against previous trade pacts such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). He said those who oppose the deal are in favor of maintaining the “status quo,” a remark that angered labor unions and some Democrats.

The administration has said the proposed pact, which would encompass nations representing 30 percent of the world’s gross domestic product, would increase U.S. exports by lowering tariffs, while also imposing higher labor and environmental standards on other nations. But opponents said they fear that the deal will lead to more outsourcing of U.S. manufacturing and agricultural jobs.”

Notice the president plans to team up with Republicans to fight to redistribute the income of the 99 to the 1 percent in yet another of these so-called trade scams. Wall Street has guided this president since day one.

The secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership will grant investors of the 0.01 percent special privileges to challenge labeling and health and safety local laws and regulations of the 99 percent; which will effectively eliminate your votes on local and state levels for and against such things (which most people call voter suppression, but in this case it should be called voter elimination), outsource millions of jobs, offer new monopolies for Big Pharma to raise medicine prices they charge you (which redistributes income from the 99 to the 1 percent), limit food safety standards (which redistributes and transforms your health into the profits of the 1 percent), and block financial regulations aimed at preventing the next financial crisis (which will make it easier for Wall Street to redistribute your income and wealth to the 1 percent). It will also kill the remainder of the US textile industry, destroy millions of jobs in Latin America, drive millions of undocumented immigrants into the United States, and depress wages in both North and South America, all to the benefit of the 1 percent, and all at the expense of the 99 percent. And we can’t forgot that it will increase the already massive US trade deficit with other nations, which is supposed to be a bad thing. In other words, this scam is the largest income redistribution treaty of all time from the 99 to the 1 percent. Wyden is not the stupid little boy he pretends he is in public forums, for knows all of this. McConnell knows it, too. Hatch knows it. Obama knows it. All we have to do to stop this mammoth income redistribution scam from moving forward is to stop Fast Track.

Nice scam, isn’t it? Your Democratic president is for this! Your Wall Street Democratic Senators such as Ron Wyden are all for this plot! The vast majority of the Republican Party is for this garbage. Your government and both major political parties are corrupt to the marrow!

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It Isn’t a Secret Why Common Core Standards Were Created, Or Is it?

Last week, I asked a public elementary teacher what she thought of Common Core standards.

“Common Core testing is developmentally inappropriate for the ages of which the tests have been designed,” the third grade teacher said.

Several teachers sitting near us agreed with her.

When I asked what she meant, the teacher said the standards for third graders were developmentally more appropriate for fifth or sixth grade students.

“Do your third grade students need to retake the tests if they fail?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. “Over and over again until they pass. All I do anymore is teach to the test at the expense of all other learning.”

“That’s precisely why they’ve been created,” I said. “Each test is more profit for the testing industry. The more students fail, the higher the profits for the industry giants.”

“Like Pearson Limited,” she said.

“And McGraw-Hill,” I said. “And their shareholders and CEOs. And it also means the tests are intended to maximize public educational failure because that maximizes corporate profits.”

“I agree,” the teacher said. “Educational reform is all about using education as a conduit to maximize publishing industry profits, even if it means destroying public education.”

I couldn’t disagree with the teacher, not at all. If you want more students to fail to maximize profits, there’s also another way to push the nation’s public school districts in that direction; expand classroom sizes. That gives every teacher less time to spend with each student, especially those that need individualized help to pass the tests that have been developed to ensure they fail, just to maximize profits at taxpayer expense.

Let’s face reality. Public schools are funded by local and state tax dollars. Common Core Standards ensure that income is redistributed from the 99 to the 1 percent via taxpayer dollars.

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Video: US Senator Elizabeth Warren Explains What Happened to the Middle Class

Senator Warren does an excellent job of explaining what has happened to push the middle class down a few notches in the video above. However, she misses some key points. Free trade treaties, for example, have led to the exportation of American jobs by the tens of millions since 1990, according to the Federal Reserve Bank.

The difference between the old higher wages and the new lower overseas wages goes straight into the pockets of the uber rich, which is why Wall Street Senator Ron Wyden supports these income redistribution treaties.

Currently, Wall Street’s favorite senator is pushing the Trans Pacific Partnership, the greatest income redistribution treaty of all time. This is almost entirely President Obama’s treaty, and we’ll never forget that Goldman Sachs was the biggest contributor to the president’s 2008 and 2012 presidential bids. Every major so-called free trade treaty has increased the US trade deficit. Why would anybody in their right mind want to increase that? Oh, that’s right. These treaties are about redistributing income from the 99 to the 1 percent.

That’s just one thing that Warren doesn’t explain. There are many other things in the form of legislation that has redistributed income from the 99 to the 1 percent, but I don’t have time to go into that.

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How the corporate press, such as the Oregonian newspaper and the Willamette Week, lies and misleads us

In Oregon, ballot measure 92 asks voters to vote yes or no on labeling food products with GMOs in them. There are plenty of studies that show the harmful impacts on animals, but no long term studies have been done on humans.

Syngenta is the 2nd largest manufacture of GMOs in the world, and its own leaked studies show that the GMO grains it produces for milk cows kills milk cows, and yet, it still sells that poison to dairy farmers. There is an ongoing lawsuit in Germany over this issue. Another of Sygenta’s leaked studies demonstrates a tight link between the demise of amphibians (such as frogs in the USA) and one of its GMO herbicides. That story was published in an academic journal in 2001. Since then, numerous other unbiased academic studies have been published showing the same result. There are a plethora of studies showing that rats fed a diet of GMOs have gotten tumors, cancer, deformed genitalia, and more.

Given the mass of evidence, it appears that the primary purpose of the Oregonian newspaper, as well as the local Willamette Week, is to keep people ignorant of these important issues. The editorial boards of both newspapers have recommended a “no” vote on Measure 92 because there are no long term studies showing potential harmful impacts of GMOs to humans. I’ve never known anybody to have volunteered for such an experiments. Neither newspaper have ever mentioned in the ink on their pages, so far as I can find, the academic studies showing the harm GMO poisons do to animals.

Most people don’t know much, if anything, about genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and that 70 percent of our food are made with them. This suggests the purpose of the Oregonian newspaper and the Willamette Week, as well as most media outlets, is to keep people ignorant. Would anybody eat food with this poison in them if they knew about the dire health risks posed by them? Probably not. Perhaps that’s why these propaganda tools refuse to mention the studies showing unhealthy results of eating GMOs, and why they ask people to vote no on Measure 92.

The actions of the editors of both newspapers also show us that they are merely a tool of the one percent that are used to mislead and lie to the 99 percent so as to more easily shape public opinion to support the financial raping and pillaging of the 99 percent by and for the 1 percent.

Vote for your health! Vote for the health of your children! Vote for the 99 percent! Vote against the 1 percent in their war against the middle class. Do something the editors of the Oregonian newspaper don’t want you to do. Vote yes on Measure 92!

Check out the links below if you want more information.

A valuable reputation–New Yorker

Consumer Reports Throws It Weight Behind GMO Labeling–Washington Post

GMO Corn: Killing the Cows Whose Milk We Drink–JohnHively.wordpress.com

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The Only Major Difference Between the Democratic and Republican Parties

On behalf of the 1 percent, 90 percent of the Democratic congressmen and women, 100 percent of Republican federal lawmakers, and all of the Democrats in the white house, work hard to redistribute the income of the 99 percent to the 1 percent. The one thing the two major political parties have in common is that on social issues they’ve agreed to disagree so as to divide the grassroots of both parties along those social issues, while screwing them on all economic issues.

Politics is a corrupt game rigged against the 99 percent.

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The New Federal Reserve Chairperson Janet Yellen: One of the Reasons Why She Was the Right Choice to Lead the Fed

Wall Street Plutocrat Larry Summers was President Obama’s first choice to lead the Fed, but he made some missteps and out he went. That left Yellen. Thanks to the Almighty! Yellen’s predecessor was a scheming architect of redistributing income from the 99 to the 1 percent.

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If the Economy Were An Airliner, What Would Inequality Look Like?

Income inequality is a complete function of government legislation. He who has the gold makes the rules. Corrupt government; that is why the economic, financial and political game is completely rigged against the 99 percent.

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