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

• 

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.

• 

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

Advertisement

Read Full Post »

The Billionaires are Richer Than Ever Thanks to the Federal Reserve and the Government Coronavirus Bailouts

Eight weeks into the pandemic, Inequality.com reported that during the eight weeks of March 18^th to May 14^th 2020 thirty-six million workers became unemployed. “Over these same eight weeks, U.S. billionaires saw their wealth increase by $368.8 billion, a 12.51 percent increase. On March 18th, U.S. billionaires had a combined $2.947 trillion, down from $3.111 trillion a year earlier, according to Forbes annual global billion survey. As of May 14, total U.S. billionaire wealth has increased to $3.316 trillion.” 

Their total wealth rose during the first eight weeks of the pandemic by $205 billion compared to just last year as tens of millions of people became unemployed. Anybody see a disconnect here?

“In the last eight weeks, 14 new billionaires joined the U.S. billionaire list, which increased from 614 to 628. Even with a recent decline in markets, Elon Musk’s wealth increased $3.5 billion in the last week, since May 6. Jeff Bezos’ wealth increased by $900 million and Eric Yuan saw his wealth increase by $800 million.  Mike Bloomberg saw his wealth increase by $400 million.

Between March 18, when Forbes published their 2020 annual Global Billionaire Survey, and the morning of Thursday, May 14, these billionaires have seen their wealth surge:

• Jeff Bezos – up $30 billion
• Mark Zuckerberg – up $21 billion
• Steve Ballmer – up $11.6 billion
• Elon Musk – up $11.3 billion
• Michael Bloomberg – up $10 billion

The top 1 percent receive almost all their wealth and income from corporations. The first four government coronavirus bailouts were written in order to save the rich and their sources of income and wealth, while the rest of us got crumbs. (Click here for that story.) U.S. income and wealth inequality has been created by a corrupt government over the last forty years. Thank you Nancy Pelosi, Mitch McConnell and Ron Wyden.  

Share prices rose since the Federal government and Fed stepped in to protect the assets of the billionaires in late March 2020 with the CARES Act, providing nice capital gains income for the billionaires in return. This increase in share prices also made CEO’s wealthier in the process. 

This should tell you how corrupt our democracy, the Fed, and both major political parties have become, and all three branches of government have become. The rich are saved from their losses, while the 99 percent eat theirs. Socialism is used to save the rich, while the vagaries of capitalism are for the rest of us. We know because the corporate news media tells us so. 

Read Full Post »

The Corrupting Billionaires Have Gotten Richer by $21 Trillion Since 1989

Adding to the mountain of statistical evidence showing the severity of U.S. inequality, an analysis by of the United States Federal Reserve Bank showed that the top one percent of Americans have gained, or rather stolen using political and media corruption, $21 trillion in wealth since 1989 while the bottom 50 percent lost $900 billion.

Matt Bruenig, founder of the left-wing think tank People’s Policy Project, broke down the Federal Reserve’s newly released “Distributive Financial Accounts” data series and found that, overall, “the top one percent owns nearly $30 trillion of assets while the bottom half owns less than nothing, meaning they have more debts than they have assets.”

Wealth is made up of assets, such as stocks, bonds, and houses. Income is the money that comes to you either via government programs, your jobs, or from your assets, such as dividends.

The growth of wealth inequality over the past 30 years, Bruenig found, is “eye-popping.” This income and wealth inequality has been brought about by the political corruption of all three branches of the United States government by the 1 percent using their control of both major political parties.

“Between 1989 and 2018, the top one percent increased its total net worth by $21 trillion,” Bruenig wrote. “The bottom 50 percent actually saw its net worth decrease by $900 billion over the same period.”

Much of the increase in inequality is due to international trade agreements, which have allowed U.S. corporations to export millions of American jobs to third world nations. The difference between the old higher US pay and other compensation goes straight into the pockets of the 1 percent via higher corporate profits, dividends and share prices.

This suggests you ought to vote for Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren for presidents.

Wall Street executives already have Joe Biden and Donald Trump, along with the corrupt corporate wing of the United States Supreme Court, and such US Senators as Ron Wyden and Mitch McConnell tucked away in their back pockets. These folks do not represent you.

Read Full Post »

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

Read Full Post »

Senator Elizabeth Warren Plans to Battle Political Corruption in the United States Government

Sen. Elizabeth Warren cited recent Pew Research Center polling that found only 18% of Americans say they can trust the U.S. government to do the right thing to unveil her Anti-Corruption and Public Integrity Act on Tuesday.

It is well known that the rich, their corporations, and their lobbyists have bought almost every member of the United States House of Representatives and almost every member of the Senate since 1981, which include such corrupt blowhards as RepubliCons Orrin Hatch, Mitch McConnell and Democrat Ron Wyden. Since 1981, every United States president has bent to the desires of the well-to-do on all matters having to do with redistributing income and wealth from the 99 to the 1 percent. Wyden, Hatch, and McConnell have voted to redistribute income and wealth from the 99 percent to the rich and powerful time and time again when they voted to export millions of jobs held by United States citizens via trade agreements.

The difference between the old higher US wages and benefits and the new three dollars a day jobs in foreign nations goes straight into the pockets of the super-rich via higher corporate profits, rising share prices, and surging dividends. The newly unemployed in the U.S. might get unemployment insurance for a few months if they are lucky.

Political corruption is precisely why income inequality has grown from the 1 percent receiving 8 percent of all income produced in the USA in 1980 to 37 percent today, and why three people own more wealth than the bottom 50 percent of the U.S. population, and why the 1 percent owns more wealth than the bottom 90 percent.

Warren’s plan provides a lifetime ban on lobbying by former members of Congress, Presidents, and agency heads and banning foreign lobbying and lobbyists donations to candidates and members of Congress.

Warren’s bill seeks to eliminate both the appearance and the potential for financial conflicts of interest by banning members of Congress, cabinet secretaries, federal judges, and other senior government officials from owning and trading individual stock, including requiring the Supreme Court follow the ethics rules applicable to all other federal judges. One study has found that members of the U.S. Supreme Court rule in favor of companies they invest in.

Warren advocates “locking the government-to-lobbying revolving door” and eliminating the “golden parachutes” that companies pay some executives when they enter public service, citing the instance of Goldman Sachs paying Gary Cohn more than $250 million when he left the firm to lead President Trump’s National Economic Council.

Warren’s legislation also aims to end what she characterizes as the corporate capture of public interest rulemaking by requiring disclosure of funding or editorial conflicts of interest when corporations and special interest groups pay for comments and studies that support rulemaking, as well as requiring elected officials and candidates for federal office to disclose more financial and tax information and making federal contractors – including private prisons and immigration detention centers – comply with federal open records laws.

A lot more can be done to end corruption in the U.S. government. Banning the paid speeches made by former presidents and high officials is a starter. Bill and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama get $250,000 a pop for half-hour paid speeches. Who is to say the lure and promise of future profits do not influence the choices made by people in high office? In addition, the government could limit the amount of funding of political campaigns provided by political action committees, corporations, and individuals. However, the corporate wing of the United States Supreme Court has been so corrupted by the inflow of cash and favors and class warfare mentality in favor of their social and economic class, that they eliminated one hundred years of legal precedent in the Citizens United case of 2010 that limited contributions as outlined in the sentence above. Reversing that, and successfully impeaching the corrupt corporate wing of the Supreme Court would go a long way toward ending the massive wave of political corruption that has swamped the United States governments at all levels like rising tides of overflowing cesspools.

For the complete story, see Elizabeth Warren Proposes Ways to Fight Political Corruption–MarketWatch.

Read Full Post »

In a Modern Sense, the Billionaires are the Political Right and the 99 Percent are the Left

The Communist Party of the United States never amounted to more than a few thousand people. The Socialist Party of the United States, quite different from the Communist Party, peaked in 1912 when presidential candidate Eugene Debs received 6.0 percent of the popular vote. The socialist party went downhill from there, and never really was a political threat to the two major corporate political parties. The political left of the United States has been effectively dead for decades in terms of communists and socialist. So who makes up the political left nowadays? And who is on the political right?

The political left is the 99 percent, while the political right is made up of the billionaires, their corporations, their corporate media, the two major political parties they own, their allies in political office, their anti-U.S. Constitution corrupt corporate wing of the United States Supreme Court (John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brent Kavanaugh, and Clarence Thomas).

In the days of yore, during the Great Depression, the left came up with socialist legislation, such as the 40-hour work week, social security, the minimum wage, labor union organizing rights, unemployment insurance, and so on. The right tried to prevent these things, and as President Franklin Roosevelt noted in 1936, the millionaires previously in control of the government and both major political parties wanted everything as it had been before the Great Depression. The millionaires wanted nothing for the 99 percent. They wanted to be in charge so to use government as an appendage of their own corporations, and let political corruption run rampant, just like the billionaires today in the United States.

In the aftermath of the Great Depression, when all those socialist programs were put in place, the United States middle class thrived. The middle and lower economic classes even won political battles, such as ending racial segregation, terminating the profitable war in Vietnam, winning the battle of the environment which industry lost, winning women’s rights, etc….

The 1 percent felt threatened enough to organize among themselves, using their corporations, and creating propaganda think tanks, such as the Heritage Foundation, and by 1975, the rich began a massive propaganda campaign, along with corrupting both major political parties and the United States Supreme Court into giving them more rights and a vast array of political victories over the 99 percent, especially when it comes to redistributing income and wealth from the 99 percent to themselves.

The rich use social issues to divide us, and keep our attention from the redistribution of income and wealth from us to them, led by such politicians as Wall Street Senator Ron Wyden, and Wall Street Senator Mitch McConnell. The billionaires who own the Democratic Party and the billionaires who own the RepubliCon Party often work together to redistribute income and wealth from the 99 percent to themselves, such as pushing legislation to export millions of jobs, while simultaneously using their corporate news media to divide the 99 percent via social issues, such as abortion, racism, the war against Christmas, the war against women, and the war against dirty diapers.

There you have it: the political right is made up of the billionaires and millionaires, and the political left is made up of the rest of us.

Read Full Post »

Elizabeth Warren Aims High on Trade Policy

Elizabeth Warren plans to put an end to Wall Street control of the Democratic Party if she becomes president. The first place she would begin is with international trade policies, drawing sharp contrasts with Wall Street puppet’s Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton in the process, along with Democratic Party Wall Street Senator Ron Wyden and dozens of other Democrats in political office.

Wyden has long been one of the architects of the growing income and wealth inequality in the United States over the last thirty years. He has continuously championed the exporting of tens of millions of American jobs on behalf of Wall Street investment banks and corporate bigwigs. The difference between the old higher U.S. wages and the new much less third world wages goes straight into the already fat wallets of the billionaires. My ex-wife calls Wyden, accurately as it turns out, a RepubliCon on all economic matters.

As for Warren, her plans include nine issues every nation would have to meet before negotiating a trade deal with the United States. Those standards include upholding and enforcing the labor rights laid out by the International Labour Organization, eliminating all domestic fossil fuel subsidies, fulfilling commitments from the Paris Climate Agreement, not running afoul of the State Department’s Country Reports on Human Rights, and not being on the Treasury Department’s monitoring list for manipulative currency practices. Warren’s requirements would apply not only to new trade deals but to existing treaties that Warren pledges to renegotiate.

Naturally, RepubliCons and Corporate/Wall Street Democrats, such as Wyden, will be opposed to Warren’s standards. So are the billionaires, Wall Street investors, and the so-called news media they control. Their only standard is to redistribute income and wealth from the 99 to the 1 percent even if the world burns.

Taken together, Warren’s mandates would fundamentally change American trade policy, potentially excluding many countries that would see the requirements as too onerous for the parasitic elites who control those governments, and who want to continue the maldistribution of income and wealth that existing trade agreements have been negotiated to bring about.

“For decades, big multinational corporations have bought and lobbied their way into dictating America’s trade policy,” Warren wrote, calling the policies across Republican and Democratic administrations a “failed trade agenda.”

“Trade can be a powerful tool to help working families but our failed pro-corporate agenda has used trade to harm American workers and the environment. My plan represents a new approach to trade — one that uses America’s leverage to boost American workers and raise the standard of living across the globe.”

In effect, Warren aims to reverse the income and wealth stolen from 99 percent of Americans and given to the billionaires by Wyden, Clinton, Obama, and the entire RepubliCon Party.

Read Full Post »

Wall Street Joe Biden’s Quick Fade As a Presidential Candidate

The 99 percent of the United States need a champion in the White House (and a lot more in Congress) and Joe Biden is not that person. Biden is a virtual employee of the super-rich, Wall Street executives and big corporations.

The corporate news media made a big play for Biden’s candidacy both before and when he entered the Democratic Party primary. This pushed Biden out to a big polling lead over the anti-Wall Street progressive candidates, such as Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Biden initially polled in the mid-40 percent range after he announced his candidacy.

This was never a good sign for Biden because he needed to poll over 50 percent in order to win the Democratic Party candidacy. As the twenty or so Democratic candidates fall by the wayside during the state primaries, the eventual progressive candidate who will oppose Biden will likely receive the vast majority of votes that otherwise would have gone to the failed progressive candidates.

Biden’s poll numbers have gradually dropped to the mid to late 20s as his record as a representative of the filthy rich and as an opponent of the vast majority of American citizens are exposed.

For example, Biden has proposed cutting Social Security benefits for working Americans on three occasions. He has also proposed cutting Medicare. As a US senator, Biden was one of the few Democrats to vote to export millions of United States jobs, and redistribute hundreds of billions (if not trillions) of dollars from working Americans to the rich, when he voted for NAFTA. The difference between the old higher US pay the new lower Mexican pay goes straight into the pockets of the rich year after year for as long as those former US jobs exist in Mexico.

Likewise, Vice President Biden was a big booster of the ill-fated Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade agreement that would have exported millions more US jobs overseas and redistributed trillions of dollars a year from working Americans to the wealthy in the process.

Many American voters are worried about income and wealth inequality in favor of the affluent. Like Wall Street Senator Ron Wyden, Biden is an architect of these inequalities, and he has the record to prove it, though nobody will hear him brag about it unless it is to the billionaires in private.

Biden is the wrong person at the wrong time for the vast majority of US citizens, and more and more Democratic Party voters can smell the stench of Wall Street all over Joe Biden. Billionaire investors have marked Biden and Wyden the same as cats mark their territory and property.

Read Full Post »

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Fires Back as The Republican Controlled United States Senate Defends Global Warming by and Big Oil By Shooting Down the New Green Deal

The US is dominated by a rich and powerful elite. So concludes a recent study by Princeton University Prof Martin Gilens and Northwestern University Prof Benjamin I Page. So what? Everybody already knew that.

Perhaps, but the two professors have conducted exhaustive research to try to present data-driven support for this conclusion. Here’s how they explain it:

Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing their business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence. In other words, the wealthy few determine public policy, while the average American has no power, and very little of it when organized in large numbers.

This is precisely why there is little or no movement in government policy in the non-battle against climate change.

Yesterday, Senate Democrats largely held together in boycotting what they decried as a “sham” vote forced by Republicans on the ambitious Green New Deal. The vote on the procedural motion failed on a 0-57 margin, with 43Democrats voting “present” to protest the GOP tactics. Just three Democrats — Sens. Doug Jones (Ala.), Joe Manchin (W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.) — broke with their party to vote against the proposal for massive clean energy and infrastructure investments to rapidly slash greenhouse gas emissions and attempt to break economic inequality. The rest voted present, including six presidential candidates who co-sponsored the non-binding resolution S.J. Res. 8. Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), who caucuses with Democrats, also joined Republicans in voting no on Tuesday.

Quite naturally, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez railed against the do-nothing representatives of the rich, which can be seen in the video above.

Something else needs to be mentioned. The rich own the news media as much as they own politicians like Republican Senator Mitch McConnell and Democratic Senator Ron Wyden, and we the people only get the news and opinions the rich want us to see.

BBC – Oligarchy in Charge of the United States

Read Full Post »

One of the Things the Progressives Need to Address: Millennial’s Pay Still Stuck Near the Year 2008

“I worked for Walmart as a shift manager,” twenty-nine-year-old Emily said. “I barely earned enough money to be able to share an apartment and drive an old beater car.” At Walmart, Emily told me her health insurance came from the state of Oregon’s health plan, which is for low-income people. In other words, Walmart’s medical benefits package is welfare from the state. This benefits the billionaire owners of Walmart while impoverishing state tax coffers.

Emily is a millennial. She now works as a waitress, but still owns the same beater car, and she needs to share a home. Emily has a friend she did not care to name, but whom we will call Ken. He works for Starbucks and under the same financial restraints as Emily, who obviously, is not alone in her financial and career situation.

Emily earned a Bachelor of Arts in Speech Communication from Portland State University. Her story is not atypical.

According to a new study, millennials still suffer from the effects of the Great Recession. Their earnings have barely budged as they enter their mid-30s, making it even harder for them to cope with the economic pressures of having a family, a leading think tank has warned.

Their pay has suffered by far the biggest squeeze of any age group since the 2008 crash, according to a study by the Resolution Foundation. While the wages of the over-50s have recovered to levels above those seen a decade ago, it found the typical salary for workers in their 30s was still 7% below its pre-crisis peak last year.

As young workers in their 20s during the financial crisis, millennials were by far the worst affected as salaries failed to keep up with inflation. Their pay fell by 11% from 2009 to 2014 before recovering some lost ground after that.

There are a number of reasons for this. Political corruption is one of them.
That corruption has brought us;

Tens of millions of U.S. jobs have been exported over the last three decades. Hundreds of thousands of U.S. high tech jobs have been outsourced to foreign workers by the H1-B visa. The difference between the old U.S. wages and the new lower wages goes straight into the pockets of the billionaires, who control the entire Republican Party, and most of the Democratic Party representatives in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.

Wall Street Senator Ron Wyden is a perfect example of a Democratic party politician who serves the billionaires in their war to redistribute income and wealth from the 99 to the 1 percent. Currently, depending on whose sources you use, the 1 percent steal anywhere from 24 to 38 percent of the total income produced yearly in the United States, up from 8 percent in 1980. That leaves the 99 percent with only 62 to 76 percent of the total yearly income produced in the U.S., down from 92 percent in 1980.

Nowadays, three people (Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett, and Bill Gates) own more wealth than the bottom 50 percent of United States citizens.

The financial game is rigged folks, both major political parties are rotted with corruption to the core. The corporate wing of the United States Supreme Court is rotted with corruption to the core.

The last bastion of financial defense and defense of uncorrupted democracy for the people of the United States is the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, represented by folks like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. The progressives get most of their campaign money via small donations. That wing of the Democratic party is the last best hope for uncorrupted democracy and leveling the financial playing field in

America.https://www.theguardian.com/money/2019/feb/03/millennials-pay-still-stunted-by-financial-crash-resolution-foundation

 

Read Full Post »