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

 

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The Wealth of the Three Richest US Families Has Grown by 6000 Percent Since 1982

When you vote November 6th for the Republican or Democratic Party candidates for the US House of Representatives and the US Senate, with few exceptions, you will be voting to increase income and wealth inequality in the United States and the world.

Below are some of the recent statistics on income and wealth inequality from Inequality.com. Wealth are the things that you own, such as homes, cars, stocks, bonds, businesses, etc…. Income is money you have coming in, such as unearned income like dividends and capital gains; while earned income is derived by actually doing something productive, like working at a job or starting and operating a business. Entrepreneurial folks are different from corporate folks inasmuch as the folks who manage corporations are often employees without clues as to how to make the businesses operate efficiently.

I should point out that control of the government via ownership of both major political parties has brought about an unceasing increase in wealth and income inequality in the USA and throughout the world. In other words, political corruption and corruption of the all major corporate news networks have been used to bring about unprecedented income and wealth inequality in the United States and the rest of the world.

Below are some of the most recent findings.

1. Three dynastic wealth families—the Waltons, the Kochs, and the Mars—have seen their wealth increase nearly 6,000 percent since 1982. Meanwhile, median household wealth over the same period went down by 3 percent. Notice they all inherited great wealth. Note that the rich have used their political power to redistribute income and wealth from the 99 percent to themselves.

2. These three wealth dynasties own a combined fortune of $348.7 billion. That’s more than four million times the median wealth of U.S. families. The dynastic wealth of the Walton family grew from $690 million in 1982 (or $1.81 billion in 2018 dollars) to $169.7 billion in 2018, a mind-numbing increase of 9,257 percent.

3. Three individuals—Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffett—still own more wealth than the bottom half of the country combined.

4. A third of the members of the Forbes 400 own fortunes derived from companies that were founded by earlier generations.

5. The 15 wealthiest multi-generational dynastic families on the Forbes 400 own a combined $618 billion. Their parents or other ancestors founded all of the companies from which their wealth is derived.

6. The Forbes 400 combined own $2.89 trillion dollars, more than the combined wealth of the bottom 64 percent of the United States. It’s also more than the GDP of Britain, the 5th-largest economy in the world. Just 45 individuals own half of this wealth.

7. The median family in the United States owns just over $80,000 in household wealth. The richest person in the United States (and the world), Jeff Bezos, has accumulated a fortune nearly 2 million times that amount.

8. The Bezos fortune expanded by $78.5 billion just in the last year to $160 billion. Even at the recently increased wage of $15/hour, a full-time Amazon worker would need to toil for 2.5 million years to generate this much money.

And so it goes. The entire Republican Party leadership has been bought by the billionaires as well as the entire Democratic Party leadership. In other words, the battle between the Democrats and the Republicans is a battle between billionaires. A few relatively honest major politicians remain in the Democratic Party, but they are not in leadership positions. Think Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Jeff Merkley, and a few others.

Think Elizabeth Warren for president in 2020.

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The Battle over the USA’s Economic Soul Begins: Trans-Pacific Partnership: Obama is Planning to Land the Knockout Punch Against the Middle Class

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a corporate power grab, a 5,544-page document that was negotiated in secret by big corporations while Congress, the public, and unions were locked out.

Multinationals like Google, Exxon, Monsanto, Goldman Sachs, UPS, FedEx, Apple, and Walmart are lobbying hard for it. Virtually every union in the U.S. opposes it. So do major environmental, senior, health, and consumer organizations.

This agreement has virtually nothing to do with trade since tariffs between the twelve nations of the TPP are at historic low. This agreement is really about exporting jobs, raising prices and more bonuses for the 1 percent at the expense of the 99 percent.

The TPP will mean fewer jobs and lower wages, higher prices for prescription drugs, the loss of regulations that protect our drinking water and food supply, and the loss of Internet freedom. It encourages privatization, undermines democracy, and will forbid many of the policies we need to combat climate change.

The worst part is the Investor-State Dispute Settlement provision, which allows a multinational corporation to sue to override any U.S. law, policy, or practice that it claims could limit its future profits. Secret panels of corporate lawyers and corporate lobbyists will decide these cases. Their judgments cannot be appealed, not even to the Supreme Court.

This provision will override your votes on the state and local levels. In other words, President Obama and Wall Street Senator Ron Wyden intend to suppress your voting rights, along with most of the Republican Party led by Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell and Orrin Hatch.

Though the Obama administration touts the pact’s labor and environmental protections, the official Labor Advisory Committee on the TPP strongly opposes it, arguing that these protections are largely unenforceable window dressing.

On behalf of Wall Street and rich investors throughout the United States, President Obama is planning to call for a vote on the TPP in the US senate and the US House after the elections in November. Obama signed the TPP, a despicable income and political power redistribution scam, months ago. Wall Street Senator Ron Wyden will likely introduce the TPP in the senate. Wyden is Obama’s and Wall Street’s attack dog in the US senate in their war against the middle class. He has voted to redistribute trillions of dollars from the 99 to the 1 percent over the course of the his career in congress.

To learn more about the TPP, check out Citizen’s Trade Campaign, and Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, Public Citizen. For labor-specific resources, try CWA, http://stopthetpp.org/, and the AFL-CIO, http://www.aflcio.org/Issues/Trade.

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Bernie Sanders: Who is the only candidate who believes the 99 percent is too big to fail?

While Hillary Clinton believes Wall Street is too rich in campaign contributions and speaking fees to fail, Bernie Sanders believes the 99 percent is too big to fail.

While Hillary continues to take money from rich special interests, such as Big Oil, Big Banks, and other tools of the 1 percent in their war against the middle class, Bernie Sanders takes campaign money only from the American people, and the average contribution is $27. Sanders also sells merchandise to help fund his campaign.

In order to fool Democratic voters, Hillary’s campaign has lurched to the center, which is Sanders country. While Sanders has been fighting for the American people, all of them, not just the rich ones, Hillary has been busy supporting legislation that redistributes income from the 99 to the 1 percent, such as the Trans Pacific Partnership, which is a massive income redistribution scam that will rob the middle class to give to the rich. See https://johnhively.wordpress.com/2016/02/12/the-trans-pacific-partnership-the-op-ed-the-liberal-and-conservative-corporate-media-doesnt-want-you-to-see/

Hillary formerly sat on the board of Walmart. Now she merely takes their hundreds of thousands of dollars. See https://johnhively.wordpress.com/2016/03/04/bernie-sanders-on-the-biggest-welfare-recipients-in-us-history-and-guess-who-those-welfare-scammers-gave-over-300000-to-in-a-single-campaign-contrubution/

By the way, Bernie is closing the gap on Hillary in a new poll. He’s down by 12, which is a lot better than being down by 50, like he was last week.

In the video above, Rosario Dawson outlines key differences between a real candidate and Hillary, Wall Street’s darling.

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Bernie Sanders on the Biggest Welfare Recipients in US history; And guess who those welfare scammers gave over $300,000 to in a single campaign contribution

Bernie Sanders has voiced complaint over the biggest welfare recipients in the USA. Even Charles Koch has complained in concurrence with Bernie. Big business receives billions of subsidies and tax breaks. This goes to ensure CEO raises, and rising corporate profits. In turn, the rising earnings increases corporate dividends and surging share prices, which almost exclusively benefit the rich at tax payer expense. In other words, government subsidies and tax breaks redistribute income from the taxpayers to the rich.

Surging dividends increase the incomes of the rich, while rocketing share prices enhance their wealth, and all at the expense of the 99 percent.

In addition, Walmart employees are paid so little the government must pay out over $7 billion for welfare, food stamps and health care to Walmart employees. This subsidizes the Walton family at the expense of taxpayers on the Federal, state and local levels.

These subsidies are pushing wages down because Walmart would be forced to pay higher wages to attract employees in the absence of subsidies for their employees.

This means the Walton family, perhaps the richest in the USA, is among the biggest welfare recipients in USA history.

Welfare Queen Alice Walton, who ranks #12 in the Forbes 400 with more than $32 billion in personal assets, gave $353,400 to the Hillary Victory Fund — one of the funds backing Hillary’s 2016 presidential campaign. While the donation was made in December of 2015, the record of her contribution wasn’t made public until a week ago.

The corporate news media, which is in the tank for Wall Street’s presidential candidate, has taken great care to not mention this contribution, which might alarm the underlying voting people who intend to vote for Hillary.

This donation comes at a time when the former First Lady and Secretary of State is trying to distance herself from her past, like referring to black youth as “super-predators,” proudly identifying as a “Goldwater girl” in her first foray into politics, and sitting on the board of Walmart for 6 years between 1986 and 1992.

This astonishing six-figure donation from one of the owners of a company widely-known for its oppressive labor practices comes in stark contrast to her campaign’s portrayal of the former New York senator as a champion of workers. Clinton’s campaign has been endorsed by the central leadership of multiple labor unions, like the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), and the National Education Association (NEA).

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New Study: Walmart is Responsible for the Exporting of 400,000 US Jobs Alone

Wall Street Senator Ron Wyden is one of the great weapons the rich use in their war against the middle class in the US senate. Walmart is a good case in point. Wyden has voted time and time again to export US jobs and redistribute income from the 99 to the 1 percent. The difference between the old higher US wages and the new lower foreign wages goes straight into the pockets of the rich via higher corporate profits, rising share prices, and surging dividends. The job losers might get a bit of unemployment insurance, if they’re lucky.

In reality, Wall Street Senator Ron Wyden stole the American dream from millions of US citizens by supporting international income redistribution scams, falsely marketed as international trade agreements.

Chinese imports made by US manufacturers entering through Wal-Mart in 2013 likely totaled at least $49.1 billion and the combined effect of imports from and exports to China conducted through Wal-Mart likely accounted for 15.3 percent of the growth of the total U.S. goods trade deficit with China between 2001 and 2013. Virtually all of those goods are made in China by companies that formerly used to manufacture in the USA, thanks to Wyden.

The Wal-Mart-based trade deficit with those US companies manufacturing in China alone eliminated or displaced over 400,000 U.S. jobs between 2001 and 2013.

The manufacturing sector and its workers have been hardest hit by the growth of Wyden’s Walmart imports. Wal-Mart’s increased trade deficit with China between 2001 and 2013 eliminated 314,500 manufacturing jobs, 75.7 percent of the jobs lost from Wal-Mart’s trade deficit. These job losses are particularly destructive because jobs in the manufacturing sector pay higher wages and provide better benefits than most other industries, especially for workers with less than a college education.
Wal-Mart has announced plans to create opportunities for American manufacturing by “investing in American jobs.” To date, very few actual U.S. jobs have been created by this program, and since 2001, the growing Wal-Mart trade deficit with US corporations manufacturing in

China has displaced more than 100 U.S. jobs for every actual or promised job created through this program.

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Costco and Red Lobster Say No to the GMO Poisoned Salmon

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) controversial approval of AquaBounty’s genetically modified (GMO) salmon has garnered further backlash from national grocery stores and restaurant chains.

Costco, the second largest retailer in the world with 487 stores and one of the largest retailers of salmon and seafood in the U.S., has made a firm commitment not to sell GMO salmon. Red Lobster has also declined to sell the GMO poison salmon.

Costco’s move to reject GMO salmon comes after vehement opposition from anti-GMO activists.

According to a statement from Friends of the Earth, Walmart and Publix are among the last remaining large retail grocers in the U.S. that have not yet rejected GMO salmon.

“The market is rejecting GMO salmon. Stores won’t sell it and people don’t want to eat it,” said Friends of the Earth Campaigner Dana Perls. “Now other retailers like Walmart and restaurants need to follow suit, and we need mandatory GMO labeling so that consumers know how to avoid GMO salmon.”

More than 60 grocery store chains representing more than 9,000 stores across the U.S. have made commitments to not sell GMO salmon, including Safeway, Kroger, Target, Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, Aldi and many others.

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Video: Why Bernie Sanders Should be President of the United States as He lays the Truth on then Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan

Watch the video above. In it US Senator Bernie Sanders strikes back at the ignorant and incompetent Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan. Greenspan was called “the wizard” because he advocated policies that redistributed income from the 99 to the 1 percent, such as tax cuts for the rich, jobs destroying trade treaties that redistributed income from working folks to the rich, privatization scams, and a ton more. Greenspan was wrong on all accounts, which he admits at the end of the video above.

Bernie Sanders was one of the few, and maybe the only, senator who dared challenge Greenspan and his beliefs. Listening to Sanders makes one realize why he should be president of the United States. He would represent all the people, not just the rich folks, like Obama, Wyden, Blumenauer, Boehner, McConnell, Orrin Hatch and so many others do today.

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How Much Do The Taxpayers of New York State Subsidize the Big Banks of New York?

Walmart is not the only business whose profits are subsidized by taxpayer payouts to massively underpaid employees. Try the banks of New York.

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Ice Cream Store Pays $15 an Hour. Why Can’t Walmart?

From US Uncut:

“When Molly Neitzel opened an ice cream shop in 2008, she told everyone her plans to pay employees a living wage. Fellow business owners scoffed and told Molly she would quickly go out of business. Six years later, Molly Moon’s Homemade Ice Cream has opened 5 new locations and hired 100 additional staff.”

If Molly can do it, why not Walmart?

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