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THERE IS A REASON WHY WALL STREET IS BANKROLLING HILLARY CLINTON!
Never have the rich increased their wealth so
quickly as in America since the financial crash
of 2008. But side by side with the amassing
of previously unthinkable private fortunes,
the infrastructure of America is crumbling,
education, health care and other social
services are starved of funding, and the living
standards of the vast majority of the
population, the working people who produce
the wealth, are declining.
, December 24, 2015
More Americans will be at religious services this holiday season. (To see survey question wording,
click here.)
(Want a
free daily e-mail update? If it's in the news, it's in our polls). Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on
Twitter or
Facebook.
The survey of American Adults was conducted on December 22-23, 2015 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by
Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See
methodology.
No “peace on Earth” in 2015
THE REALITY of OBAMA-CLINTONOMICS:
"Barack Obama continues to fundamentally transform and tilt our nation to favor one of his favorite groups – Muslims -- at the expense of everyone else.
AS WALL STREET BANKSTERS LOOT WITH IMPUNITY:
"In a suitable symbol of “Christmas in America,” a cafeteria worker in an Idaho middle school was fired last week for “theft” after she gave a hungry child a free meal. “My heart hurts,” she told a local news station. “I truly loved my job, and I can’t say that I wouldn’t do it again."
Nowhere is this more true than in the center of world finance, the United States, where one in five children live in food-insecure households and millions of people will struggle to scrape together enough money for a holiday meal. For all the promotion of philanthropic “charity” by the media, one can scarcely imagine a more un-charitable society than contemporary America, dominated by a Dickensian level of cruelty to the poor.
No “peace on Earth” in 2015
24 December 2015
This holiday season, people all over the world will celebrate Christmas by expressing sentiments of tolerance and brotherhood. They will exchange gifts and cards, and try to smile a little more, in the distant hope that their individual benevolence might somehow extricate the world, at least somewhat, from the mire it is lodged in.
These genuine sentiments are, of course, goaded on by a good deal of official promotion. Anyone visiting a shopping mall or airport in much of the world over the holiday period will hear Christmas carols piped through loudspeakers extolling “peace on Earth, goodwill to men,” and exhorting them to have a “Merry Christmas.”
The holiday season is always a time where hypocrisy is pressed into service by the political establishment, a “Christmas spirit” created from the collision between religion and frantic merchandising. But there have been few holiday seasons so unhappy for so many people, and in which the spirit of tolerance and benevolence supposedly epitomized in the “Christmas spirit” clashes so obviously with reality.
Not since the end of the Second World War seventy years ago has the absence of “peace on Earth” been so stark, or “goodwill to men” so absent. Numerous public figures, from the Pope to the Prince of Jordan to
The New York Times opinion page, have declared that the Third World War has already begun.
American warplanes and drones swarm the Middle East and North Africa, bombing, killing and maiming indiscriminately and driving millions from their homes. President Obama, according to press reports, will spend his holiday mulling over plans to further expand bombing in populated areas in Syria, which will radically expand civilian casualties.
Every major combatant in the first two world wars is again on the warpath. Germany and Japan, are feverishly remilitarizing to assert their influence on the European continent and in East Asia, respectively.
The millions of human beings displaced by war and poverty are greeted by states everywhere with barbed wire and guns. At least five million people were forced to flee from their homes this year, with one million seeking refuge in Europe, as a result of the wars in the Middle East stoked up by the Western powers.
These same powers, the self-styled bastions of tolerance and human rights, have responded to the flood of people desperately in need of aid by closing off their external borders and forcing hundreds of thousands to make their way over the Aegean Sea. Over 3,000 people have died this year seeking to cross into Europe by this route, while over 1,000 of these are children.
For an enormous section of mankind, this Christmas will not be “merry.” In fact, it is hard to imagine any Christmas in recent decades that will be so miserable for so many people.
For millions around the world, it will be another year that they are denied by poverty the happiness of being able to afford holiday presents for their friends and loved ones.
Nowhere is this more true than in the center of world finance, the United States, where one in five children live in food-insecure households and millions of people will struggle to scrape together enough money for a holiday meal. For all the promotion of philanthropic “charity” by the media, one can scarcely imagine a more un-charitable society than contemporary America, dominated by a Dickensian level of cruelty to the poor.
In a suitable symbol of “Christmas in America,” a cafeteria worker in an Idaho middle school was fired last week for “theft” after she gave a hungry child a free meal. “My heart hurts,” she told a local news station. “I truly loved my job, and I can’t say that I wouldn’t do it again.”
All over the world, governments and the media are seeking to counter the sentiments of compa
ssion by whipping up nationalism, xenophobia, communal hatred and paranoia. In the US, the leading Republican presidential candidate is an open bigot, declaring that Mexicans are rapists and calling for banning Muslims from entering the country. Donald Trump’s demagogy was expressed in action when a British Muslim family was prevented this month from boarding a plane to Disney World by the State Department, without any explanation.
In Germany, Angela Merkel, the supposed promoter of the “welcoming culture,” declares that “multiculturalism is a sham.” In France, the ruling Socialist Party, seeking to enshrine a permanent state of emergency into the constitution, is bent on obtaining the power to strip dual citizens of their nationality, a measure last used in France during the mass deportation of Jews under the Vichy Regime during the holocaust.
Anyone who has observed the world in 2015 must expect that 2016 will be a year of unprecedented violence and social misery. But the same processes driving the world to the brink of world war are those that must give rise to social struggle by the working class.
Unlike the professional liars and opinion-makers of the financial elite and its political representatives, the working masses of humanity take the ideals of universal peace and brotherhood seriously. They genuinely hope and strive for a better world, and will fight for it. In the coming period, millions will conclude that an independent political struggle by the working class, armed with a socialist perspective of overthrowing capitalism and reorganizing society on an internationalist basis, is the only means to achieve “peace on earth.”
Andre Damon
As the chart shows, the federal government’s welfare system is fostering dependency at an alarming rate. The number of people dependent on three big government programs has grown from less than 80 million to over 95 million in just six years. This as the federal government runs up the national debt with a credit card backed by future earnings of today’s children and by those not yet born.""The national debt stands at $18.8 trillion, $8.2 trillion more than the $10.6 trillion it was when President Barack Obama was elected."
There has been a massive expansion of immigrants coming into America -- one that has accelerated under Barack Obama.
Income inequality grows FOUR TIMES FASTER under Obama than Bush.
“By the time of Bill Clinton’s election in 1992, the Democratic Party had completely repudiated its association with the reforms of the New Deal and Great Society periods. Clinton gutted welfare programs to provide an ample supply of cheap labor for the rich (WHICH NOW MEANS OPEN BORDERS AND NO E-VERIFY!), including a growing layer of black capitalists, and passed the 1994 Federal Crime Bill, with its notorious “three strikes” provision that has helped create the largest prison population in the world.”
Obama's crony banksters destroyed the American middle class as invested in real estate.
Obama's sabotage of homeland security, the American borders, and laws prohibiting the employment of illegals, even if they have a stolen social security number, have destroyed tens of millions of jobs American's deserve.
AMNESTY: THE HOAX TO KEEP WAGES DEPRESSED AND PASS ALONG THE COST OF MEXICO'S WELFARE STATE IN OUR OPEN BORDERS AND CRIME TIDAL WAVE TO WHAT IS LEFT OF THE AMERICAN MIDDLE CLASS!
Socialist Alternative forms group to support Sanders campaign
Socialist Alternative forms group to support Sanders campaign
By Eric London
24 December 2015
On December 19, Socialist Alternative announced that it had established a new political formation aimed at boosting the campaign of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.
Dubbed the “Movement4Bernie,” the group is the most explicit connection between the Democratic Party and the American pseudo-left to date. But even the term “connection” implies that Socialist Alternative and the Democratic Party are separate entities. By actively mobilizing support for a nationalist, pro-capitalist, pro-imperialist bourgeois politician like Sanders, Socialist Alternative has again proven that it is a faction of the Democratic Party and the political establishment.
In announcing its formation, the Movement4Bernie issued a manifesto, which reads, in part: “Let’s get organized to help Bernie win in 2016, stop the right-wing Republicans and counter the Wall Street dominated Democratic Party establishment.
“Millions of people are fed up with establishment politics. The momentum behind Bernie Sanders gives us a real chance to gather together everyone who wants to build a real alternative for the 99%. We can turn this into the most important election in decades by building an organized political force behind the Sanders campaign to fight against racism, sexism and corporate domination. To do this, we need a political movement that can build protests and direct action while running independent candidates who refuse to take corporate cash.”
It continues: “If we get organized in a big way, we can bring millions behind us into Bernie’s campaign to win in 2016. We can begin to build a new, lasting, and powerful force—based on the independent power of working people and not big business…”
While supporting a bourgeois candidate running for a bourgeois party’s nomination to become the commander-in-chief of the armies of American imperialism, the group’s self-proclaimed “independence” from the two parties is an insult to the reader’s intelligence. Every line of this proclamation is a carefully crafted lie aimed at deceiving the “millions” whom the authors hope to “bring behind” them into the Democratic Party.
Seattle’s City Councilperson and Socialist Alternative member Kshama Sawant announced her support for Movement4Bernie with a statement titled “Fight back against the pro-business Democratic establishment—Let’s build a #Movement4Bernie.”
As further proof of the degree to which Socialist Alternative operates as a faction within the Democratic Party, Sawant’s announcement takes as a starting point an internal Democratic Party campaign squabble over access to a voter database. When Sanders staffers apparently took advantage of a fortuitous glitch to steal Clinton voter information, the Democratic Party cut Sanders’ access and restored it shortly thereafter.
“Thursday’s attempt by the Democratic National Committee to sabotage Bernie Sanders’s [sic] campaign shows how the leadership of the Democratic Party is absolutely hostile to anti-corporate and left-wing politics,” Sawant writes.
“It will only be possible for Bernie to defeat Clinton—and the billionaires, the political establishment, and the corporate media that are supporting her—if Sander’s [sic] campaign activates tens of thousands of people as part of a massive movement against big business and the right…together we can stop the right-wing Republicans, Clinton and all big business politicians!”
The terms are carefully crafted in vague and malleable terms (“build a real alternative,” “build a new, lasting, and powerful force,” “fight against corporate domination,” “stop big business politicians”). While the Republicans are denounced as “right-wing” forces who must be “stopped,” it is only the “Democratic establishment” and not the party as a whole that needs, not to be stopped, but merely “countered.” Absent from these metaphysical labels is any class analysis—these terms only serve to confuse and disorient.
But in politics, parties and figures bear responsibility for the endorsements they make. An endorser announces that it is willing to take political ownership for the endorsee’s political program, which enunciates policies aimed at advancing the material interests of definite social classes. In other words, you are what you endorse.
A look at Sanders’ program makes clear that Socialist Alternative is pronouncing its support for the American ruling class and the US imperialist war machine. During the Democratic debate last Saturday, Sanders once again affirmed his support for the never-ending US wars of plunder and destruction in the Middle East.
“I’m running for president because I want a new foreign policy—one that takes on ISIS, one that destroys ISIS,” he said. Sanders, who voted for the war in Afghanistan, voted repeatedly to fund the war in Iraq, and supported Israel’s genocidal war against the people of Gaza in 2014, also supports forcing Muslim countries to escalate the ongoing war in Syria: “I believe that countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar have got to step up to the plate, have got to contribute the money that we need, and the troops that we need, to destroy ISIS with American support.”
Sanders has also proclaimed his support for deporting immigrant families, declaring that an open-borders policy would be “right-wing.” Sanders trumpeted the tired, demagogic and nationalist attempt to pit American workers against the international working class by stating that immigration would “make everybody in America poorer.”
Sanders has openly rejected the call for the working class to democratically control production and the distribution of resources—a basic tenet of socialism. To the contrary, his calls for a slightly higher minimum wage, free education and slightly higher taxes on the wealthy are reminiscent of a moderate Democratic platform from the 1960s.
Sanders also supports the Obama administration’s “Pivot to Asia,” the spending of trillions of dollars on the American war machine, and the prosecution of Edward Snowden.
Socialist Alternative’s formation of the Movement4Bernie comes as Sanders’ efforts to combine support for imperialist war abroad with social reform are being exposed as hopeless and impossible.
Though Sanders has made every effort to align himself with the military-intelligence apparatus, he is coming under pressure from sections of the ruling class who oppose any mention of social inequality on the grounds that it might detract from the so-called “war on terror.” Using the pretext of the recent attacks in Paris and San Bernardino,
Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen wrote that Sanders “has had his day. Suddenly, big banks are the least of our problems.”
The
New York Times added that Sanders makes “fighting terrorism sound like an afterthought.” His “progressive political message, so popular with liberals for much of 2015, now seems lost in a fog of fear.”
In other words, the needs of the imperialist war machine black out all discussion of social reform. The cynical statements of the Democratic press, and the right-wing trajectory of Sanders himself, expose the impossibility of fighting for social equality within the framework of the Sanders campaign, the Democratic Party and the capitalist system.
It is at precisely this moment that Socialist Alternative, which has long supported Sanders, launches an official campaign to cover over Sanders’ pro-war, pro-capitalist program with a “left” fig leaf. This maneuver is aimed to confuse and disorient. It exposes the fact that Socialist Alternative serves to prop up the political establishment, prolong the existence of the capitalist system and ensure the continuity of the state of permanent war.
This maneuver is not the product of mistakes or political misjudgments. Groups like Socialist Alternative represent a privileged section of the upper-middle class that has nothing in common with socialism or the working class. They are paid for their services with additional “political space” within the political establishment, allowing them to advance their identity politics program and stake out positions of personal privilege in government, academia, the trade unions and the military-intelligence apparatus.
Certain disagreements exist between the various factions of the pseudo-left. For example, while Socialist Alternative runs head first into the Sanders campaign, the International Socialist Organization seeks to use its influence in the trade unions as a springboard for propping up bourgeois rule in the city of Chicago.
However, in the final analysis, the efforts of the pseudo-left to block a movement of the working class are becoming an increasingly important axis upon which the fate of capitalism relies. Fearing a revolutionary wave, the ruling class is preparing its political levees. It is in ruthless opposition to such pseudo-socialist groups that a revolutionary movement of the working class will be built.
HILLARY CLINTON: The Obvious Successor to Barack Obama
Income inequality grows FOUR TIMES
FASTER under Obama than Bush.
“By the time of Bill Clinton’s election in 1992, the Democratic Party had completely repudiated its association with the reforms of the New Deal and Great Society periods. Clinton gutted welfare programs to provide an ample supply of cheap labor for the rich (WHICH NOW MEANS OPEN BORDERS AND NO E-VERIFY!), including a growing layer of black capitalists, and passed the 1994 Federal Crime Bill, with its notorious “three strikes” provision that has helped create the largest prison population in the world.”
December 22, 2015, 02:00 pm
In blockbuster poll, Sanders destroys Trump by 13 points
By Brent Budowsky, columnist, The Hill
Stop the presses! According to a new poll by Quinnipiac University on Tuesday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) destroys Republican candidate Donald Trump in a general election by 13 percentage points. In this new poll, Sanders has 51 percent to Trump's 38 percent. If this margin held in a general election, Democrats would almost certainly regain control of the United States Senate and very possibly the House of Representatives.
It is high time and long overdue for television networks such as CNN to end their obsession with Trump and report the all-important fact that in most polls, both Hillary Clinton and Sanders would defeat Trump by landslide margins. In the new Quinnipiac poll, Clinton would defeat Trump by 7 percentage points, which is itself impressive and would qualify as a landslide, while the Sanders lead of 13 points would bring a landslide of epic proportions.
It is noteworthy that in this Quinnipiac poll, Sanders runs so much stronger than Clinton against Trump. It is also noteworthy and important that both Sanders and Clinton run so far ahead of Trump in general election match-up polling. And it is profoundly important and revealing that Sanders would defeat Trump by such a huge margin — 13 points in this poll — that analysts would be talking about a national political realignment and new progressive era in American history if an enlightened candidate such as Sanders would defeat a retrograde race-baiting candidate such as Trump by a potentially epic and historic margin.
It is time for the mainstream media to end their obsession with Trump and their virtual news blackout of the Sanders campaign when discussing presidential campaign polling.
How about, from now on, when any analyst on television discusses how strong Trump allegedly is, that it be emphasized that this strength is only within the GOP, and that in a general election, the real heavyweight champion of presidential polling is Bernie Sanders, not Donald Trump!
Budowsky was an aide to former Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-Texas) and former Chief Deputy Majority Whip Bill Alexander (D-Ark.). He holds an LL.M. degree in international financial law from the London School of Economics. Contact him at brentbbi@webtv.net.
Socialist Alternative forms group to support Sanders campaign
Socialist Alternative forms group to support Sanders campaign
By Eric London
24 December 2015
On December 19, Socialist Alternative announced that it had established a new political formation aimed at boosting the campaign of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.
Dubbed the “Movement4Bernie,” the group is the most explicit connection between the Democratic Party and the American pseudo-left to date. But even the term “connection” implies that Socialist Alternative and the Democratic Party are separate entities. By actively mobilizing support for a nationalist, pro-capitalist, pro-imperialist bourgeois politician like Sanders, Socialist Alternative has again proven that it is a faction of the Democratic Party and the political establishment.
In announcing its formation, the Movement4Bernie issued a manifesto, which reads, in part: “Let’s get organized to help Bernie win in 2016, stop the right-wing Republicans and counter the Wall Street dominated Democratic Party establishment.
“Millions of people are fed up with establishment politics. The momentum behind Bernie Sanders gives us a real chance to gather together everyone who wants to build a real alternative for the 99%. We can turn this into the most important election in decades by building an organized political force behind the Sanders campaign to fight against racism, sexism and corporate domination. To do this, we need a political movement that can build protests and direct action while running independent candidates who refuse to take corporate cash.”
It continues: “If we get organized in a big way, we can bring millions behind us into Bernie’s campaign to win in 2016. We can begin to build a new, lasting, and powerful force—based on the independent power of working people and not big business…”
While supporting a bourgeois candidate running for a bourgeois party’s nomination to become the commander-in-chief of the armies of American imperialism, the group’s self-proclaimed “independence” from the two parties is an insult to the reader’s intelligence. Every line of this proclamation is a carefully crafted lie aimed at deceiving the “millions” whom the authors hope to “bring behind” them into the Democratic Party.
Seattle’s City Councilperson and Socialist Alternative member Kshama Sawant announced her support for Movement4Bernie with a statement titled “Fight back against the pro-business Democratic establishment—Let’s build a #Movement4Bernie.”
As further proof of the degree to which Socialist Alternative operates as a faction within the Democratic Party, Sawant’s announcement takes as a starting point an internal Democratic Party campaign squabble over access to a voter database. When Sanders staffers apparently took advantage of a fortuitous glitch to steal Clinton voter information, the Democratic Party cut Sanders’ access and restored it shortly thereafter.
“Thursday’s attempt by the Democratic National Committee to sabotage Bernie Sanders’s [sic] campaign shows how the leadership of the Democratic Party is absolutely hostile to anti-corporate and left-wing politics,” Sawant writes.
“It will only be possible for Bernie to defeat Clinton—and the billionaires, the political establishment, and the corporate media that are supporting her—if Sander’s [sic] campaign activates tens of thousands of people as part of a massive movement against big business and the right…together we can stop the right-wing Republicans, Clinton and all big business politicians!”
The terms are carefully crafted in vague and malleable terms (“build a real alternative,” “build a new, lasting, and powerful force,” “fight against corporate domination,” “stop big business politicians”). While the Republicans are denounced as “right-wing” forces who must be “stopped,” it is only the “Democratic establishment” and not the party as a whole that needs, not to be stopped, but merely “countered.” Absent from these metaphysical labels is any class analysis—these terms only serve to confuse and disorient.
But in politics, parties and figures bear responsibility for the endorsements they make. An endorser announces that it is willing to take political ownership for the endorsee’s political program, which enunciates policies aimed at advancing the material interests of definite social classes. In other words, you are what you endorse.
A look at Sanders’ program makes clear that Socialist Alternative is pronouncing its support for the American ruling class and the US imperialist war machine. During the Democratic debate last Saturday, Sanders once again affirmed his support for the never-ending US wars of plunder and destruction in the Middle East.
“I’m running for president because I want a new foreign policy—one that takes on ISIS, one that destroys ISIS,” he said. Sanders, who voted for the war in Afghanistan, voted repeatedly to fund the war in Iraq, and supported Israel’s genocidal war against the people of Gaza in 2014, also supports forcing Muslim countries to escalate the ongoing war in Syria: “I believe that countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar have got to step up to the plate, have got to contribute the money that we need, and the troops that we need, to destroy ISIS with American support.”
Sanders has also proclaimed his support for deporting immigrant families, declaring that an open-borders policy would be “right-wing.” Sanders trumpeted the tired, demagogic and nationalist attempt to pit American workers against the international working class by stating that immigration would “make everybody in America poorer.”
Sanders has openly rejected the call for the working class to democratically control production and the distribution of resources—a basic tenet of socialism. To the contrary, his calls for a slightly higher minimum wage, free education and slightly higher taxes on the wealthy are reminiscent of a moderate Democratic platform from the 1960s.
Sanders also supports the Obama administration’s “Pivot to Asia,” the spending of trillions of dollars on the American war machine, and the prosecution of Edward Snowden.
Socialist Alternative’s formation of the Movement4Bernie comes as Sanders’ efforts to combine support for imperialist war abroad with social reform are being exposed as hopeless and impossible.
Though Sanders has made every effort to align himself with the military-intelligence apparatus, he is coming under pressure from sections of the ruling class who oppose any mention of social inequality on the grounds that it might detract from the so-called “war on terror.” Using the pretext of the recent attacks in Paris and San Bernardino,
Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen wrote that Sanders “has had his day. Suddenly, big banks are the least of our problems.”
The
New York Times added that Sanders makes “fighting terrorism sound like an afterthought.” His “progressive political message, so popular with liberals for much of 2015, now seems lost in a fog of fear.”
In other words, the needs of the imperialist war machine black out all discussion of social reform. The cynical statements of the Democratic press, and the right-wing trajectory of Sanders himself, expose the impossibility of fighting for social equality within the framework of the Sanders campaign, the Democratic Party and the capitalist system.
It is at precisely this moment that Socialist Alternative, which has long supported Sanders, launches an official campaign to cover over Sanders’ pro-war, pro-capitalist program with a “left” fig leaf. This maneuver is aimed to confuse and disorient. It exposes the fact that Socialist Alternative serves to prop up the political establishment, prolong the existence of the capitalist system and ensure the continuity of the state of permanent war.
This maneuver is not the product of mistakes or political misjudgments. Groups like Socialist Alternative represent a privileged section of the upper-middle class that has nothing in common with socialism or the working class. They are paid for their services with additional “political space” within the political establishment, allowing them to advance their identity politics program and stake out positions of personal privilege in government, academia, the trade unions and the military-intelligence apparatus.
Certain disagreements exist between the various factions of the pseudo-left. For example, while Socialist Alternative runs head first into the Sanders campaign, the International Socialist Organization seeks to use its influence in the trade unions as a springboard for propping up bourgeois rule in the city of Chicago.
However, in the final analysis, the efforts of the pseudo-left to block a movement of the working class are becoming an increasingly important axis upon which the fate of capitalism relies. Fearing a revolutionary wave, the ruling class is preparing its political levees. It is in ruthless opposition to such pseudo-socialist groups that a revolutionary movement of the working class will be built.
OBAMA-CLINTONOMICS: Serving their crony banksters and Wall Street paymasters!
THE RECOVERY THAT NEVER WAS... EXCEPT FOR CRONY BANKSTERS!
“Sentiment is horrendous. It’s the worst since the financial crisis—and it’s getting worse every day.”
"The lack of confidence in the country’s growth prospects in the upper echelons of the financial and economic elites is exemplified by the flight of capital, with foreign exchange reserves recording their third-largest monthly fall in November."
"His decrees range from the idiotic to the grotesque -- his order to the EPA to shut down the coal industry, the repurposing of NASA as a Muslim PR effort, the post-legislative changes to ObamaCare (the most recent requiring full coverage for sex-change operations), and perhaps the most egregious, his gift of one and a half trillion dollars to his pals in the financial industry."
"Of course, the wealth of the financial elite cannot come from nowhere. Ultimately, the continual infusion of asset bubbles is the form taken by a massive transfer of wealth, from the working class to the banks, investors and super-rich."
"More than seven years after the 2008 financial meltdown, not only is there no genuine economic recovery, the measures taken to rescue the banks and the financial elite have compounded the underlying contradictions of the world capitalist system, bringing it to the brink of an even more catastrophic breakdown."
"Critics say the central bank's actions made Wall Street and the super-rich even fatter, fueling a stock market surge while leaving many ordinary workers no better off and widening the nation's wealth inequality."
"First, the supply of trillions of dollars of ultra-cheap money by the Fed and other central banks has done nothing either to resolve the crisis which erupted in 2008 or bring about a genuine economic recovery."
"Yellen seemed flustered and largely dodged the question. She could not provide a convincing answer because the collapse in oil and commodity prices and the persistence of ultralow inflation reflect the reality of economic slump and the failure of the Fed and the other major central banks to engineer a genuine recovery in the real economy, despite the funneling of trillions of dollars into the banking system.
"It has, however, subsidized a vast transfer of wealth from the bottom to the top, fuelling a tripling of stock prices, record corporate profits and CEO bonuses, and ever greater levels of social inequality. The vast sums handed to the banks and hedge funds have not, for the most part, been invested in production, but used instead to fund parasitic activities such as job-slashing corporate mergers, stock buybacks and dividend increases. To pay for the resulting bankrupting of state treasuries, governments around the world have imposed brutal austerity measures against the working class."
"Second, these policies have only created the conditions for another financial crisis, whose consequences are potentially even more devastating than those triggered by the sub-prime mortgage collapse. The deepening decline in the real economy and the mounting signs of financial distress demonstrate that the source of the global economic crisis is the capitalist system itself, which cannot be reformed, but must be overthrown and replaced by the international working class in the fight for socialism."
"The figures are remarkable. The share of the national wealth accruing to middle-income households, the study reported, was 43 percent in 2014, down from 62 percent in 1970. The median wealth of middle-income households has fallen by 28 percent over the past decade and a half. The share of income going to upper-income households has risen from 29 percent to 49 percent over the same period."
"This analysis was absolutely correct, and more than two-and-a-half decades of ever greater appropriation of the national wealth by the top fraction of the super-rich, under both the Bush and Obama administrations, have only imparted greater ferocity and bitterness to those "terrific tensions."
“As a result, the share of wealth held by the richest 0.1 percent of the population grew from 17 percent in 2007 to 22 percent in 2012, while the wealth of the 400 richest families in the US has doubled since 2008.”
After Fed rate hike, global economic fault lines deepen
After Fed rate hike, global economic fault lines deepen
19 December 2015
After an initial rise following the decision by the US Federal Reserve to lift interest rates by 0.25 percentage points on Wednesday, stock markets around the world have experienced significant declines over the past two days.
The biggest falls were in the United States, where the Dow was down by 368 points at the close of trade on Friday, a drop of more than 2 percent, while the more broadly based S&P 500 fell by 1.8 percent. The CBOE VIX index, which measures market volatility and is often referred to as the “fear gauge,” went over 20, a level regarded as indicating a high degree of market stress.
Markets also fell around the world after rising in the immediate aftermath of the Fed decision. The Euro Stoxx index dropped by 1.4 percent on Friday after rising earlier in the week. In Japan, the Nikkei index closed 1.9 percent lower.
Underlying the volatility on share markets are a series of widening fault lines in the global economy produced by the deepening trend toward stagnation and slump. The increased turbulence in financial markets is an expression of the fact that massive financial speculation, fuelled by the Fed and other central banks’ pumping of trillions of dollars into the banking system since the 2008 Wall Street crash, is being overwhelmed by developments in the real economy, particularly the decline in industrial production.
So far, this interaction has found its sharpest expression in the market for high-yield, or “junk,” corporate bonds, particularly in the energy sector, because of the sharp fall in oil and other energy prices, coupled with the decline in basic industrial commodity prices to their lowest levels since the global financial crisis.
This week, the price of Brent crude oil hit a seven-year low of $36.33 per barrel, further heightening problems in the energy junk bond market, where money poured in to finance risky ventures when the price of oil was trading at around $100 per barrel less than two years ago.
But the turbulence is not confined to energy-related finance. According Lipper, a Thomson Reuters company that supplies information to financial markets, investors withdrew $5.1 billion from US mutual funds that purchase bonds rated as investment grade by credit-rating agencies—the largest such withdrawal since 1992. This was accompanied by a further withdrawal of $3 billion from junk bond funds. In the week to December 16, it is estimated that $15.4 billion was withdrawn from taxable bond funds.
In a report on the state of financial markets issued this week, the Office of Financial Research (OFR), set up by the US Treasury after the 2008 crisis, painted a picture of, in the words of
Financial Times economic commentator Gill Tett, a “distinctly distorted American financial system” resulting from seven years of ultra-low interest rates.
The OFR said that “credit risk in the US non-financial business sector is elevated and rising.” It went on to warn that “higher base rates may create refinancing risks… and potentially precipitate a broader default cycle.”
In other words, a situation has been created where a default or a series of defaults in high risk areas could set off a chain reaction in the system as a whole, recalling the effects of the sub-prime mortgage collapse. When that crisis emerged in 2006 and 2007, then-Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke brushed it off as a relatively small problem that could be easily contained.
The worsening financial situation is compounded by the divergence in the policies of the world’s major central banks. While the Fed has moved towards tightening, although at a very gradual pace, the European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan are continuing with various forms of “quantitative easing” aimed at pumping more money into the financial system.
BLOG: HERE COME THE NEXT ROUND OF CRONY BANKSTER BAILOUTS!
In the midst of growing financial turbulence, however, the official mantra is that the US is in the midst of an expanding economic recovery and is considered to be a “bright spot” in the world economy.
This soothing scenario is belied by both longer-term developments and the immediate situation. Since the US economy started growing in the June quarter of 2009, its gross domestic product has increased by only 2.2 percent per year, the lowest pace for any post-recession phase in post-World War II history. As a result, it took five years for the US economy just to make up for the loss of employment and economic output sustained as a result of the financial crisis.
Now figures from the industrial sector point to another downturn. US industrial production last month was down by a seasonally adjusted 0.6 percent from October, the biggest drop since March 2012 and the third straight month it has fallen. Manufacturing output, which comprises three quarters of industrial production, was flat. Mining output was down 1.1 percent for the month and is now 8.2 percent below the level of a year ago.
According to a report published in the
Financial Times on Tuesday, a common theme of major companies supplying industry, such as Caterpillar and Deer & Co, is that “tough times are back,” with some even pointing to “the arrival of an industrial recession.”
The stagnation in US industry is part of an emerging global trend. Data on industrial employment in China—the world’s major manufacturing centre—shows that aggregate employment in manufacturing fell by 1.9 percent in the year ending in October. In the third quarter, employment growth in the sector was at its lowest rate on a quarterly basis since 2000. The biggest declines are in heavy industry, with iron ore mining and processing employment down by 12 percent, coal mining down 7 percent, and steel employment down 6 percent.
The slowdown in China is impacting on so-called emerging markets more generally. Of 22 big emerging markets tracked by JPMorgan Chase, 21 have had their growth forecasts for 2016 downgraded. Brazil, which is highly dependent on the Chinese economy, is the sharpest expression of this trend. Its economy is contracting by 4.5 percent according to the latest data. Brazil’s worsening situation was highlighted this week when Fitch became the second of the major credit rating agencies to downgrade the country’s debt to junk status.
The World Bank has warned of “the beginning of an era of weak growth for emerging markets.” This will have a significant impact, as these economies account for almost 40 percent of global output. They could also be hit by significant financial turbulence, with the International Monetary Fund warning that they have incurred $3 trillion more in debt than is warranted by commodity prices and global demand.
Two inescapable conclusions flow from the latest economic data and the growing turbulence in financial markets.
First, the supply of trillions of dollars of ultra-cheap money by the Fed and other central banks has done nothing either to resolve the crisis which erupted in 2008 or bring about a genuine economic recovery.
It has, however, subsidized a vast transfer of wealth from the bottom to the top, fuelling a tripling of stock prices, record corporate profits and CEO bonuses, and ever greater levels of social inequality. The vast sums handed to the banks and hedge funds have not, for the most part, been invested in production, but used instead to fund parasitic activities such as job-slashing corporate mergers, stock buybacks and dividend increases. To pay for the resulting bankrupting of state treasuries, governments around the world have imposed brutal austerity measures against the working class.
Second, these policies have only created the conditions for another financial crisis, whose consequences are potentially even more devastating than those triggered by the sub-prime mortgage collapse. The deepening decline in the real economy and the mounting signs of financial distress demonstrate that the source of the global economic crisis is the capitalist system itself, which cannot be reformed, but must be overthrown and replaced by the international working class in the fight for socialism.
Nick Beams
Relying on survey data is also problematic; the U.S. Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey notoriously undercounts program enrollees.
However, it is possible to track the growth of government dependents over time. This can be done by tracking the number of people in the same programs year over year. To get the trend for overall government dependents, several programs that have minimum overlap in recipients can be added together and tracked.
The chart shows the number of OASDI (old age, survivor and disability insurance) recipients, plus the number of Pell Grant recipients, plus the number of earned income tax credit recipients from 1975 to 2013 (the last year complete data is available).
This obviously is only a rough calculation, but any double counting of people who, for example, are on OASDI and also have Pell grants should be more than balanced by people who are dependent on other programs like food stamps or subsidized housing, but are not on one of the counted programs.
In fact, Robert Rector and Rachel Sheffield of The Heritage Foundation have concluded that when counting all of the over 80 means-tested welfare programs that provide cash, food, housing, medical care, and targeted services to poor and low-income Americans, the number of government dependents tops 100 million individuals—nearly one in three Americans.
As the chart shows, the federal government’s welfare system is fostering dependency at an alarming rate. The number of people dependent on three big government programs has grown from less than 80 million to over 95 million in just six years. This as the federal government runs up the national debt with a credit card backed by future earnings of today’s children and by those not yet born.
The national debt stands at $18.8 trillion, $8.2 trillion more than the $10.6 trillion it was when President Barack Obama was elected. That’s not investing in the future, that’s kicking an $18.8 trillion can down the road to the next generation’s doors.
The next time a politician promises one more “free” government benefit, the “Me Generation” should remember that they are living on borrowed time and borrowed money
Middle Eastern groups have been pushing for years for this change: George Bush opposed the designation. Barack Obama is pushing it as part of his plans to radically transform America-as he promised to do in 2008.
His legacy will last forever. Americans will be paying the price.
"According to Senator Jeff Sessions, 91 percent of recent Middle Eastern refugees are on food stamps and 73 percent receive free health care. The lifetime costs to American taxpayers for 85,000 refugees will be 55 billion dollars."
"There has been a massive expansion of immigrants coming into America -- one that has accelerated under Barack Obama."
"Barack Obama continues to fundamentally transform and tilt our nation to favor one of his favorite groups – Muslims -- at the expense of everyone else."
"Taking even a sympathetic approach to Obama’s handling of foreign policy, one might not be too wide of the mark in suggesting that what he had in mind re a fundamental transformation was bringing America low, i.e. that contrary to Krauthammer’s more generous assessment of Obama’s actions as “disengaged” or “delusional,” he is doing exactly what he set out to do -- destroy America."
Obama -- Disengaged, Delusional, or Diabolical?
Shortly after taking office (and not long after his “fundamental transformation” speech) Obama flew to Cairo to deliver an apology and a loving outreach to Islam -- going so far as to suggest that Islam has deep roots in the USA. As recent events have made clear, there is no question that they are buried deep in the soil of the Obama administration. One very stark example is the Muslim Brotherhood, mother of all Islamic terrorist organizations; it is banned in Egypt, its birthplace, but welcome in the White House.
The greatest American recruiting tool ISIS has is our feckless leader, Obama -- because weakness is the greatest recruiting tool an enemy can have, and no group of people is more aware of this than the Arabs, who firmly believe in a “strong horse” approach to violent confrontation. Weakness emboldens one’s enemies, and draws possible recruits to their ranks, and it is hard to imagine a weaker leader than we now have, in the person of Obama. For an excellent elaboration of this point, I strongly recommend a book by Lee Smith, The Strong Horse -- Power, Politics, And The Clash of Arab Civilizations.
Throughout his tenure, Obama has made it clear that American exceptionalism is to be denied at all cost; we are no more exceptional than any other country, and our imperialistic and hegemonic tendencies are to be reined in. The only problem with this approach is that America is the preeminent world leader, and when it steps back from its natural leadership role, it creates a vacuum, one that the world’s most dangerous and corrupt elements are only too willing to fill. Witness what has happened in Libya, Egypt immediately after Mubarak was deposed, Syria, Yemen, and, on a larger scale, Russia’s moves on the Crimea and Ukraine, China and the South China Sea, etc. Taking even a sympathetic approach to Obama’s handling of foreign policy, one might not be too wide of the mark in suggesting that what he had in mind re a fundamental transformation was bringing America low, i.e. that contrary to Krauthammer’s more generous assessment of Obama’s actions as “disengaged” or “delusional,” he is doing exactly what he set out to do -- destroy America.
Shortly after taking office (and not long after his “fundamental transformation” speech) Obama flew to Cairo to deliver an apology and a loving outreach to Islam -- going so far as to suggest that Islam has deep roots in the USA. As recent events have made clear, there is no question that they are buried deep in the soil of the Obama administration. One very stark example is the Muslim Brotherhood, mother of all Islamic terrorist organizations; it is banned in Egypt, its birthplace, but welcome in the White House.
Moving right along, Obama has always been desirous of closing Guantanamo Bay, arguing that its existence is a recruiting tool for Islamists -- although he never demonstrates why this is so. Are we to assume that throwing these barbarians in American jails -- where they can really do some active recruiting -- sits better with ISIS? This position is preposterous, but, then again, preposterous is the order of the day when it comes to Obama’s foreign policy -- you know, leading from behind, strategic patience, soft imprint, all slogans to cover up for not leading at all. In any event, consistent with his desire to close Gitmo, he has been systematically downsizing the facility by returning the less dangerous barbarians to “safer” places in the Middle East (are there really safer places in the Middle East?). In this regard, his arrangements with respect to the Bowe Bergdahl transaction, the American deserter soon to be court-martialed for desertion -- i.e. exchanging 5 extremely dangerous terrorists for one American traitor (a win-win for the enemy) is typical of Obama’s fecklessness.
Throughout his tenure, Obama has made it clear that American exceptionalism is to be denied at all cost; we are no more exceptional than any other country, and our imperialistic and hegemonic tendencies are to be reined in. The only problem with this approach is that America is the preeminent world leader, and when it steps back from its natural leadership role, it creates a vacuum, one that the world’s most dangerous and corrupt elements are only too willing to fill. Witness what has happened in Libya, Egypt immediately after Mubarak was deposed, Syria, Yemen, and, on a larger scale, Russia’s moves on the Crimea and Ukraine, China and the South China Sea, etc. Taking even a sympathetic approach to Obama’s handling of foreign policy, one might not be too wide of the mark in suggesting that what he had in mind re a fundamental transformation was bringing America low, i.e. that contrary to Krauthammer’s more generous assessment of Obama’s actions as “disengaged” or “delusional,” he is doing exactly what he set out to do -- destroy America.
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/12/obama__disengaged_delusional_or_diabolical.html#ixzz3uttXneRT
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The next affirmative action group will be Muslims
Early in his presidency, Barack Obama’s plans to control the Census Bureau unleashed a firestorm of criticism. The White House in a radical move ordered the Census Bureau to work directly with Barack Obama aides. Since the 2010 census would play a key role in drawing House districts and electoral votes at least until 2020 there was criticism that Obama’s moves, supported by other Democrats, would be used for partisan purposes to empower Democrats.
Some 1.2 million households received pilot questionnaires containing the new category starting in August. If adopted, the changes would rework how the federal government tracks race and ethnicity by allowing millions of Americans to identify themselves as Middle Eastern or North African. Most have previously marked themselves as “white.”
There has been a massive expansion of immigrants coming into America -- one that has accelerated under Barack Obama. At least 1,500,000 immigrants from Middle Eastern countries have moved to America since 9/11. Barack Obama has opened the door for this trend to continue if not go into overdrive -- and this extends to far more than his welcome mat for Syrian “refugees.” Barack Obama has plans to bring in 85,000 refugees in the coming year (not just Syrians).According to Senator Jeff Sessions, 91 percent of recent Middle Eastern refugees are on food stamps and 73 percent receive free health care. The lifetime costs to American taxpayers for 85,000 refugees will be 55 billion dollars.
As I have written in Obama’s Grand Plan, Barack Obama has plans to forge a political bloc of minorities to wield power long after he has left office-his power will be sued for baleful purposes for decades to come .
But that is just a start if Barack Obama and his Democratic allies grant them a census category all their own since it opens a door for them -- and all their descendants forever -- to be considered minorities for affirmative action purposes. Those costs will make $55 billion appear to be miniscule.
Middle Eastern groups have been pushing for years for this change: George Bush opposed the designation. Barack Obama is pushing it as part of his plans to radically transform America-as he promised to do in 2008.
His legacy will last forever. Americans will be paying the price.
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/12/the_next_affirmative_action_group_will_be_muslims.html#ixzz3utynYIp8
Follow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on Facebook
Trade agreements are one cause of job and wage reduction. Over the last twenty years, we’ve amassed $10 trillion in trade deficits and exported 12 million manufacturing jobs, forcing workers to move into lower-wage service jobs. Government brags about the free trade agreements, CAFTA, NAFTA, KORUS, and TPP. But the “free” applies only to the foreign trading partners, which manipulate their currencies, pay sweatshop workers low wages, manufacture under environmentally-toxic conditions, and restrict U.S. imports. We hand over our technology, good-paying jobs, product labeling, and safety guarantees -- all to enrich multinational corporations and foreign industry. Industrial research and development have been decimated as companies move overseas or outsource jobs, leaving the nation a future of little technological innovation. The U.S. is left with hollowed-out industries and service jobs.
ObamaCare influences, and will influence to greater degrees, the lowering of incomes for Americans as healthcare costs rise. Higher premiums and deductions for health insurance are being shifted to employees, reducing benefits and wages. Medical care costs already have risen much faster than wages, leaving many struggling to pay for necessities. Ever-higher deductions mean that people can’t afford to use the insurance they are forced to buy because they can’t even pay the deductions.
Another contributor to job deficiency and wage stagnation is the increased regulation and taxation of small businesses instituted by Obama’s executive orders, EPA overreach, and ObamaCare. Small businesses traditionally have created two-thirds of new jobs annually. The bright spot in the economy, small businesses have created 78.7 percent of new jobs since the recession. Today, faced with these government anti-business policies, small businesses are closing their doors at a faster rate than new businesses are opening. The small businesses that remain open often don’t expand because of Obamacare and government regulations.
Income inequality is greatly impacted by the Federal Reserve’s policies of money-printing and zero interest rates, which have led to the funding of the financial and corporate markets while ignoring the needs of smaller businesses. The money supply and cheap lending has gone to the government, large corporations, and Wall Street, leaving the rest of the economy to sputter along with little capital and fewer jobs. The Fed’s policies of crony capitalism favor big business and big banks over that of smaller entities and are responsible for the increasing number of big business deals such as Walgreen's purchase of Rite Aid.
This government-driven, crony-capitalist economy defined by job scarcity and wage stagnation is the reason college graduates are burdened by $1.3 trillion debt, living with parents, can’t afford to marry or buy homes, and working as waitresses and bartenders. Job scarcity and low wages are the reasons we’re becoming a nation of renters rather than homeowners. They are the reasons that 51 percent of workers earn less than $30,000 a year. They are the reasons for the demise of the middle class and the burgeoning welfare rolls, the modern-day equivalent of slavery.
Income inequality and its devastating consequences are seldom mentioned on the nightly news. The media and bogus government statistics paint rosy pictures about economic recovery, and government masks the bad economy with welfare so that we don’t see Great Depression bread lines. But the only recovery has been in the Federal Reserve’s inflated stock market, not in the main street economy, where 94 million working-age adults are unemployed and 47 million are on some welfare program. The “Made in America” displays weekly touted by ABC news are the few exceptions, rather than the rule, in an American economy of boarded-up stores and factories.
The political implications of income inequality are most evident in the increasing rise and entrenchment of career politicians, supported by big donor funding and media favoritism. The integrity of the electoral process is endangered as election propaganda, funded by big money and hyped by corporate media bias, become more prominent in spreading lies, distortions, and innuendos to the voting public. Unrestricted campaign funding has given the moneyed elites first access to elected officials. At the same time, private-sector unions, small businesses, and citizens find their influence dwindling or irrelevant. This crony capitalism, resembling dictatorships and communist oligarchies, seriously threatens our democracy because money, power, and media control are consolidated in the hands of a few at the top. Voter apathy prevails, as voters feel increasingly powerless to change the course of events.
The United States, a once great economic powerhouse and the largest creditor nation, has become the largest debtor nation, and is fast becoming a banana republic. Past and present elected authorities and public officials have stripped bare our industries, put the nation under a mountain of debt, and turned the U.S. into a welfare depository. Government leaders have intentionally failed to protect our borders, jobs, and freedoms. These public “servants” and the wealthy elites have garnered riches for themselves, and purposely impoverished citizens and future generations. The greatest threats to our economy and national security are not foreign countries or terrorists; they are the enemies inside, corrupt government leaders and the money masters they serve.
Trade agreements are one cause of job and wage reduction. Over the last twenty years, we’ve amassed $10 trillion in trade deficits and exported 12 million manufacturing jobs, forcing workers to move into lower-wage service jobs. Government brags about the free trade agreements, CAFTA, NAFTA, KORUS, and TPP. But the “free” applies only to the foreign trading partners, which manipulate their currencies, pay sweatshop workers low wages, manufacture under environmentally-toxic conditions, and restrict U.S. imports. We hand over our technology, good-paying jobs, product labeling, and safety guarantees -- all to enrich multinational corporations and foreign industry. Industrial research and development have been decimated as companies move overseas or outsource jobs, leaving the nation a future of little technological innovation. The U.S. is left with hollowed-out industries and service jobs.
The federal government encourages the massive illegal and legal immigration that plays a huge role in job scarcity and income suppression for American workers. To paraphrase Milton Friedman, a viable economy cannot exist with open borders and unrestricted immigration. An oversupply of workers willing to work for less pay, the outsourcing of jobs, and visa-immigrant hiring allow companies to replace American workers with immigrants for reduced labor and benefit costs. A well-known example is that of Disney IT workers who were forced to train their cheaper immigrant replacements. It is no coincidence that the rise in immigration has occurred simultaneously with the rise of the welfare state. People unemployed, or in low-wage and part-time jobs, rely on government subsidies. The result is larger national debt, more corporate wealth, and declining wages.
ObamaCare influences, and will influence to greater degrees, the lowering of incomes for Americans as healthcare costs rise. Higher premiums and deductions for health insurance are being shifted to employees, reducing benefits and wages. Medical care costs already have risen much faster than wages, leaving many struggling to pay for necessities. Ever-higher deductions mean that people can’t afford to use the insurance they are forced to buy because they can’t even pay the deductions.
Another contributor to job deficiency and wage stagnation is the increased regulation and taxation of small businesses instituted by Obama’s executive orders, EPA overreach, and ObamaCare. Small businesses traditionally have created two-thirds of new jobs annually. The bright spot in the economy, small businesses have created 78.7 percent of new jobs since the recession. Today, faced with these government anti-business policies, small businesses are closing their doors at a faster rate than new businesses are opening. The small businesses that remain open often don’t expand because of Obamacare and government regulations.
Income inequality is greatly impacted by the Federal Reserve’s policies of money-printing and zero interest rates, which have led to the funding of the financial and corporate markets while ignoring the needs of smaller businesses. The money supply and cheap lending has gone to the government, large corporations, and Wall Street, leaving the rest of the economy to sputter along with little capital and fewer jobs. The Fed’s policies of crony capitalism favor big business and big banks over that of smaller entities and are responsible for the increasing number of big business deals such as Walgreen's purchase of Rite Aid.
This government-driven, crony-capitalist economy defined by job scarcity and wage stagnation is the reason college graduates are burdened by $1.3 trillion debt, living with parents, can’t afford to marry or buy homes, and working as waitresses and bartenders. Job scarcity and low wages are the reasons we’re becoming a nation of renters rather than homeowners. They are the reasons that 51 percent of workers earn less than $30,000 a year. They are the reasons for the demise of the middle class and the burgeoning welfare rolls, the modern-day equivalent of slavery.
Income inequality and its devastating consequences are seldom mentioned on the nightly news. The media and bogus government statistics paint rosy pictures about economic recovery, and government masks the bad economy with welfare so that we don’t see Great Depression bread lines. But the only recovery has been in the Federal Reserve’s inflated stock market, not in the main street economy, where 94 million working-age adults are unemployed and 47 million are on some welfare program. The “Made in America” displays weekly touted by ABC news are the few exceptions, rather than the rule, in an American economy of boarded-up stores and factories.
The political implications of income inequality are most evident in the increasing rise and entrenchment of career politicians, supported by big donor funding and media favoritism. The integrity of the electoral process is endangered as election propaganda, funded by big money and hyped by corporate media bias, become more prominent in spreading lies, distortions, and innuendos to the voting public. Unrestricted campaign funding has given the moneyed elites first access to elected officials. At the same time, private-sector unions, small businesses, and citizens find their influence dwindling or irrelevant. This crony capitalism, resembling dictatorships and communist oligarchies, seriously threatens our democracy because money, power, and media control are consolidated in the hands of a few at the top. Voter apathy prevails, as voters feel increasingly powerless to change the course of events.
The United States, a once great economic powerhouse and the largest creditor nation, has become the largest debtor nation, and is fast becoming a banana republic. Past and present elected authorities and public officials have stripped bare our industries, put the nation under a mountain of debt, and turned the U.S. into a welfare depository. Government leaders have intentionally failed to protect our borders, jobs, and freedoms. These public “servants” and the wealthy elites have garnered riches for themselves, and purposely impoverished citizens and future generations. The greatest threats to our economy and national security are not foreign countries or terrorists; they are the enemies inside, corrupt government leaders and the money masters they serve.
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/11/the_causes_of_income_inequality.html#ixzz3qSBDYQVs
AMNESTY: THE HOAX TO KEEP WAGES DEPRESSED AND PASS ALONG THE REAL COST OF WELFARE FOR ILLEGALS TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE
"The U.S. now ranks at, or near, the top of developed countries for income inequality. Job creation has lagged far behind population growth. Automation has erased some jobs, but corrupt, inept government leadership is responsible for the deplorable job- deficit-low wage situation."
"It is clear that the overarching goal of a succession of administrations and many members of Congress, irrespective of political party affiliation, is to keep our borders open and take no meaningful action to stop that flow of aliens into the United States."
326,000 Native-Born Americans Lost Their Job in November: Why This Remains the Most Important Jobs Chart
By Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge.com, December 5, 2015
. . .
We are confident that one can make the case that there are considerations on both the labor demand-side (whether US employers have a natural tendency to hire foreign-born workers is open to debate) as well as on the supply-side: it may be easier to obtain wage-equivalent welfare compensation for native-born Americans than for their foreign-born peers, forcing the latter group to be much more engaged and active in finding a wage-paying job.
However, the underlying economics of this trend are largely irrelevant: as the presidential primary race hits a crescendo all that will matter is the soundbite that over the past 8 years, 2.7 million foreign-born Americans have found a job compared to only 747,000 native-born. The result is a combustible mess that will lead to serious fireworks during each and every subsequent GOP primary debate, especially if Trump remains solidly in the lead.
. . .
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-12-05/326000-native-born-americans-lost-their-job-november-why-remains-most-important-jobs
Placating Americans with Fake Immigration Law Enforcement
How our leaders create fantasy 'solutions' for our immigration-related vulnerabilities.
By Michael Cutler
FrontPageMag.com, December 4, 2015
. . .
Therefore the Visa Waiver Program should have been terminated after the terror attacks of 9/11 yet it has continually been expanded.
It is clear that the overarching goal of a succession of administrations and many members of Congress, irrespective of political party affiliation, is to keep our borders open and take no meaningful action to stop that flow of aliens into the United States.
. . .
The obvious question is why the Visa Waiver Program is considered so sacrosanct that even though it defies the advice and findings of the 9/11 Commission no one has the moral fortitude to call for simply terminating this dangerous program. The answer can be found in the incestuous relationship between the Chamber of Commerce and its subsidiary, the Corporation for Travel Promotion, now doing business as Brand USA. The Chamber of Commerce has arguably been the strongest supporter of the Visa Waiver Program, which currently enables aliens from 38 countries to enter the United States without first obtaining a visa.
The U.S. State Department provides a thorough explanation of the Visa Waiver Program on its website.
Incredibly, the official State Department website also provides a link, “Discover America,” on that website which relates to the website of The Corporation for Travel Promotion, which is affiliated with the travel industries that are a part of the “Discover America Partnership.”
. . .http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/261005/placating-americans-fake-immigration-law-michael-cutler
MIDDLE-CLASS.
EQUITY, HIS ILLEGALS HAVE BUILT A TRILLION DOLLAR LA
RAZA WELFARE STATE ON OUR BACKS…. AND ALL JOBS GO TO
NON-AMERICANS!
2014
By Niles Williamson
19 September 2015
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2015/09/millions-of-jobs-for-illegals-along.html
"In the midst of the deepest slump since the Great Depression, the administration starved state and city governments of resources, leading to the destruction of hundreds of thousands of education and public-sector jobs and the gutting of workers’ pensions. Obama’s Affordable Care Act set in motion the dismantling of employer-paid health insurance and massive cuts in the Medicare insurance system for the elderly."
Top 1 percent own more than half of world’s wealth
By Patrick Martin
14 October 2015
quickly as in America since the financial crash
of 2008. But side by side with the amassing
of previously unthinkable private fortunes,
the infrastructure of America is crumbling,
education, health care and other social
services are starved of funding, and the living
standards of the vast majority of the
population, the working people who produce
the wealth, are declining.