Oligarchs, Congress and Obama are shamelessly insisting that good ol’ trickle down economics will bring us recovery. Different year. Same BS.
Two years and waiting waiting waiting out this round of the BS.
Nearly 1 out of 4 Americans are now unemployed but our Washington faux-reps -- really cronies to the fat cats (fat cats, who are, by the way, doing FABULOUSLY) -- want to stay the Reaganomics course. It hasn’t ever worked, won’t now and will never work. Have they never heard of the definition of insanity? Do they think WE have never heard that definition?
Nearly 1 out of 4 Americans are now unemployed but our Washington faux-reps -- really cronies to the fat cats (fat cats, who are, by the way, doing FABULOUSLY) -- want to stay the Reaganomics course. It hasn’t ever worked, won’t now and will never work. Have they never heard of the definition of insanity? Do they think WE have never heard that definition?
FDR provided a WPA program for jobs. Obama? Obama amiably and paternally advises us there will be “bumps in the road” and then turns his back on OUR desperate reality. And don’t tell us how the Republicans don’t care about our condition, Mr. President. Show us how you do! (I know. I know. That ship of hope has sailed.)
Ted Rall in "The Emperor Has No Economy” writes:
… Obama should start packing. He has not done anything that might have helped the unemployed: extending jobless benefits, forcing banks to renegotiate mortgages for homeowners, imposing national commercial and residential rent control, substantial tax credits for the poor and working class. And it shows: the consumer who lays the golden egg has no money to spend - and economic activity has all but ceased.
People are furious. But they are angrier at the thought that the rich are getting richer and that the president isn't actively searching for solutions than they are about the fact that they can't pay their bills.
[snip]
Can an economy "recover" without its people?
Airports and shopping malls throughout the United States are empty. Advertising space on billboards and newspapers go begging. Storefronts from Fifth Avenue in New York to the Las Vegas Strip to small towns in the Midwest are boarded up. The price of homes, which for middle-class Americans are often their sole substantial form of savings, continues to decline after the real estate bubble burst in 2008. Consumer confidence, the measure of people's willingness to part with cash to buy goods and services, is in the tank.
When 60 percent of Americans rate the economy as poor, don't count on them to buy stuff.
They're not.
Rall also acknowledges how well the super rich are doing these days.
Meanwhile, the paper [USA Today] noted, "average compensation among S&P 500 CEOs rose to $12 million in 2010, up 18 percent from 2009 - and that's not counting the potential multimillion-dollar value of stock or stock options, which are granted at set prices and provide holders profits as stock values rise."
The numbers are jaw-dropping. John Hammergren, CEO of the McKesson healthcare services firm, received $150.7 million in 2010. Fashion maven Ralph Lauren paid himself $75.2 million. "Some of the gains are humongous", said Paul Hodgson of GovernanceMetrics.
Paul Buchheit had this to say:
The richest 1% has tripled its share of the income pie over the past 30 years, mainly through tax cuts and financial deregulation. If their income had increased only at the pace of American productivity (80%), they would be taking about a trillion dollar less out of our economy.
That extra income could provide a $40,000 per year job to every unemployed person and college graduate in the United States and have enough left over to pay off the deficits of all 50 states.
So the winners are pulling away. Meanwhile, average Americans make the same money, adjusted for inflation, that they made 30 years ago. If the median household income had increased at the pace of American productivity (80%), families would be making $92,000, not $50,000.
How about the superstars at the top? One man (John Paulson) made enough money last year to hire a quarter of a million entry-level health care workers, all by himself.
John W. Whitehead points out in "The Military Industrial Complex: The Enemy From Within" that while both political parties and the President are grandstanding over health care costs and Social Security, as if it is the “sick, elderly and poor who are stealing us blind and pushing America towards bankruptcy” no serious attention is being made of what the “greedy defense contractors, corrupt politicians and incompetent government officials” are up to in bleeding the government dry to the tune of $15 billion a month OR $20 MILLION AN HOUR for our foreign wars.
Whitehead:
Yet what most Americans fail to recognize is that these ongoing wars have little to do with keeping the country safe and everything to do with enriching the military industrial complex at taxpayer expense. War–or the art of killing–has unfortunately become a huge money-making venture, and America, with its vast military empire, is one of its best buyers and sellers.
Unfortunately, Americans have been inculcated with a false, misplaced sense of patriotism about the military that equates devotion to one’s country with supporting the war machine so that any mention of cutting back on the massive defense budget is immediately met with outrage. Yet they might be surprised to learn that little of the money being spent on so-called defense is actually being used for national defense, meanwhile those in uniform are being used as convenient fronts for a military industrial complex that is bilking taxpayers out of billions of dollars in questionable defense spending.
A government audit, for example, found that defense contractor Boeing has been massively overcharging taxpayers for mundane parts, resulting in tens of millions of dollars in overspending. As the report noted, the American taxpayer paid:
$71 for a metal pin that should cost just 4 cents; $644.75 for a small gear smaller than a dime that sells for $12.51: more than a 5,100 percent increase in price. $1,678.61 for another tiny part, also smaller than a dime, that could have been bought within DoD for $7.71: a 21,000 percent increase. $71.01 for a straight, thin metal pin that DoD had on hand, unused by the tens of thousands, for 4 cents: an increase of over 177,000 percent.
Of course, this kind of rampant abuse is ludicrous, and never more so than at a time when unemployment is topping 9.2%. When most Americans can scarcely afford the cost of cooling their own homes, taxpayers should be up in arms over having to pay through the nose to the tune of $20 billion–more than NASA’s entire annual budget–to air condition the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. And if you think gas prices at home are high, just consider what the American taxpayer is being forced to shell out overseas: once all the expenses of delivering gas to troops in the field are factored in, we’re paying between $18-30 per gallon for gas in Iraq and Afghanistan. Incredibly, despite reports of corruption, abuse and waste, the mega-corporations behind much of this ineptitude and corruption continue to be awarded military contracts worth billions of dollars.
Just consider: Congress and the White House want taxpayers to accept that the only way to reduce the nation’s ballooning deficit and avoid raising the debt ceiling is by cutting “entitlement” programs such as Social Security and Medicare. Yet if the government would just take the amount spent on the war in Afghanistan this year alone ($122 billion in FY2011) and reallocate it where it’s needed here at home, it would entirely wipe out the projected budget shortfalls for fiscal year 2012 for 41 states and the District of Columbia, totaling $103 billion.
Another story by Robert Johnson concerns two “nearly constructed” naval vessels costing US taxpayers $300 million that are heading to the SCRAP HEAP this week over contested contract negotiations made in 1993. NO MONEY WILL BE RETURNED TO THE U.S. TREASURY! Wonder how often stuff like this happens.
Matt Taibbi always supplies an outrageous angle about the financial surreality of this once great nation. This time it is the self-labeling as “middle class” by the rich and their faux-concerns for THEIR financial survival compared to truly desperate people:
Sirota's list highlights another bizarre aspect of the $500k story [SALARY CAPS]. During the debate over the proposed cap, one of the things we started to hear from the Antoinette class was a general sense of wonder at the notion that anyone considered them rich. It turns out that a great many of the people who make big six-figure incomes consider themselves middle class. A University of Chicago professor arguing against the repeal of the Bush tax cuts made waves by saying he was "just getting by" with his $250,000 income, while ABC's Charlie Gibson and CNN reporter Kiran Chetry in recent years suggested that $200-$250,000 is middle class (Chetry's exact quote was that "in some parts of the country," $250K "is middle class").
All of this is a testament to the amazing (and rapidly expanding) cultural divide that exists in this country, where the poor and the rich seldom cross paths at all, and the rich, in particular, simply have no concept what being broke and poor really means. It is true that if you make $300,000 in America, you won't feel like you're so very rich once you get finished paying your taxes, your mortgage, your medical bills and so on.
For this reason, a lot of people who make that kind of money believe they are the modern middle class: house in the burbs, a car, a kid in college, a trip to Europe once a year, what's the big deal? They'd be right, were it not for the relative comparison -- for the fact that out there, in that thin little ithsmus between the Upper East Side and Beverly Hills, things are so fucked that public school teachers and garbagemen making $60k with benefits are being targeted with pitchfork-bearing mobs as paragons of greed and excess. Wealth, in places outside Manhattan, southern California, northern Virginia and a few other locales, is rapidly becoming defined as belonging to anyone who has any form of job security at all. Any kind of retirement plan, or better-than-minimum health coverage, is also increasingly looked at as an upper-class affectation.
That the Tea Party and their Republican allies in congress have so successfully made government workers with their New Deal benefits out to be the kulak class of modern America says a lot about the unique brand of two-way class blindness we have in this country. It's not just that the rich don't know the poor exist, and genuinely think a half a million a year is "not a lot of money," as one "compensation consultant" told the New York Times after the crash.
It also works the other way -- the poor have no idea what real rich people are like. They apparently never see them, which is why the political champions of middle America are at this very minute campaigning in congress to extract more revenue from elderly retirees and broke-ass students while simultaneously fighting to preserve a slew of tax loopholes for the rich, including the carried-interest tax break that allows hedge fund billionaires to pay about half the tax rate of most Americans.
Speaking of poor people, a Nike factory in Indonesia is in the news for the ultra-low wages, verbal and physical assaults and firings for taking sick leave on some of its exploited 10,000, mostly female, employees. The women make about 50 cents an hour. Barely enough to eat and pay for their bunkhouse housing Zaid Jilani reports. Jilani also discloses at a PT Amara Footwear factory outside Jakarata, “a supervisor ordered six female workers to stand in the blazing sun after they failed to meet their target of completing 60 dozen pairs of shoes on time.” We are talking here of literal ultra-sadistic “sweat” shops. Next time you think people in other countries are lucky to get our outsourced jobs, consider who the real bottom feeding winners are and what working conditions they have raced to the bottom to establish.
Oh yeah, and a little aside to that story. In 2010, Nike CEO Mark Parker received an 84% hike in his annual compensation, totaling $13.1 million. WTG, Mark! A raise of 84% in the course of a year. Hard to fathom by the bottom 99.9% of us or your Indonesian sweatshop workers I would safely say.
Another note in this quickly gathered collection of obscene financial news: President Obama has DUMPED ELIZABETH WARREN as Director of the new Consumer Financial Regulatory Bureau. Elizabeth Warren who Ralph Nader was convinced would have gone after the corporate criminals and speculators who defrauded the savings and pensions of millions of Americans.
But, that would have been too anti-"bipartisan" for Obama. Too empathetic and pro the average Americans sinking fast into the greed-created economic quicksands.
Nader’s words:
To dump Elizabeth Warren, the most qualified, most motivated and most articulate candidate for the directorship of the Consumer Financial Regulatory Bureau is an act of political cowardliness by President Obama and a boon to anti-consumer Republicans and their corporate paymasters in Wall Street.
Any of us paying attention cannot say we are surprised. But disappointed one more time.
If you think the corporatist (via their Washington cronies) gang-raping of American and global citizens is coming to an end, or the “bait and switch”, rhetoric v. reality, what I bitterly call “date raping” of the citizenry by the faux-champions of the people, Obama and the Dems, is coming to an end, think again.
Our safety nets that we have worked all our lives for, though the word “entitlements” implies the opposite, vs. the extra measure of jets, jewels, homes, cars, designer clothes, spas, wines, private islands, whatever of the avaricious rich and famous (I don't know where to begin on the range of their toys, seriously) there seems little contest. We have the best government money can buy. And it did. Not for us.
Sometimes the money is white-collar stolen, sometimes khaki-collared murders are required first. Not the concern of the elites. Conscience has left the penthouses and luxurious estates if it ever existed there. Also left the oath-taking Washington offices as well.
Rethink Obama, rethink the Democratic Party. Who seriously has our backs in this government?
Rethink Obama, rethink the Democratic Party. Who seriously has our backs in this government?
Patrick Martin reports on how well Obama's reelection fundraising is going among the filthy rich:
Some details of the wooing of big-ticket donors were reported in the Washington press. The Post reported June 29, “Campaign officials are working to broaden Obama’s network of ‘bundlers,’ the well-connected rainmakers tasked with soliciting big checks from wealthy donors, while seeking to preserve the aura of a grass-roots movement by luring back the kind of small Internet donations that helped shatter fundraising records four years ago. Obama has attended 28 fundraisers from coast to coast—a pace that could continue, or even accelerate, over the next several months.”
The Post noted that White House Chief of Staff William Daley, former vice chairman of JP Morgan Chase “has huddled in recent weeks over breakfasts and dinners with business leaders and Wall Street financiers in Chicago, New York and Washington,” while campaign manager Messina “made his pitch during at least two meetings in Manhattan with Wall Street executives.”
Politico described one Wall Street fundraising dinner held at Daniel, a top-drawer restaurant on Manhattan’s Upper East Side: “The tables were filled with moneymen like Marc Lasry, the billionaire founder of the hedge fund Avenue Capital; Robert Wolf, the chief executive of UBS Group Americas; and Mark T. Gallogly, a co-founder of Centerbridge Partners.”
While noting the absence of Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan Chase and Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs, this was said to be by mutual agreement—an effort to avoid photographs of the president shaking hands with the CEOs of the largest recipients of federal bailouts.
Obama. Always was exceptionally savvy about "impression management".
Gangster capitalism is thriving. Profits uber alles. Uber humanity.
[cross-posted at correntewire and sacramento for democracy]
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Excellent - and utterly horrifying. I remember the "$900 for a hammer" story from when I was a kid. How come nobody ever catches on? It isn't all Fox News's fault, is it? Somehow I agree with the saying that we have the government we deserve.
Rated.
Rated.
The six hundred dollar toilet seats and ball peen hammers are standard operating procedure and they have been for a while. The escalating of corporate corruption has been accompanied by record breaking fund raising, as you have indicated, every election cycle. This comes at an enormous cost to society and there should be no doubt that regardless of how the people that take the bribes define the word “bribe” this is bribery!
Also I thought you might be interested in this article about Nike in Indonesia.They’re also having problems with their sweat shops in Vietnam and China. They claim they have made “improvements.” It wouldn’t sound good if they didn’t make this claim.
On top of that their sneakers and everything made by most manufacturers are designed to fall apart prematurely as a result of planned obsolescence so we have to buy them over and over again.
Also I thought you might be interested in this article about Nike in Indonesia.They’re also having problems with their sweat shops in Vietnam and China. They claim they have made “improvements.” It wouldn’t sound good if they didn’t make this claim.
On top of that their sneakers and everything made by most manufacturers are designed to fall apart prematurely as a result of planned obsolescence so we have to buy them over and over again.
Thanks, Alan. It is staggering the arrogance, corruption and incompetence. That military spending is a free-flowing blank check for all thanks to Congressional and Presidential paranoia that anybody be thought soft on terror. What a war profiteer's dream!
zachery, thanks for the links! I remember when my father years ago explained planned obsolescence. Always getting runs in my nylons and having to buy a new pair. "You know," he said, "they know how to make them so they don't run. But then they'd lose business. Who would buy more then?" Something just didn't seem quite right about that solution.
We don't have the fourth estate any more to really do many hard-hitting exposes. Feeding frenzies of one story, and cronied up for access or capital to the oligarchs. Politics not news. Gamesmanship and gossip about the gamers is the focus. Not out there on the ground, either I suppose, though those that are and risking life and limb, I salute them!!!!
Thanks for commenting. :)
zachery, thanks for the links! I remember when my father years ago explained planned obsolescence. Always getting runs in my nylons and having to buy a new pair. "You know," he said, "they know how to make them so they don't run. But then they'd lose business. Who would buy more then?" Something just didn't seem quite right about that solution.
We don't have the fourth estate any more to really do many hard-hitting exposes. Feeding frenzies of one story, and cronied up for access or capital to the oligarchs. Politics not news. Gamesmanship and gossip about the gamers is the focus. Not out there on the ground, either I suppose, though those that are and risking life and limb, I salute them!!!!
Thanks for commenting. :)
My latest post concerns, precisely, the military budget.
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