Is Obama running scared?
Former President Obama is back on the political hustings again, this time sounding less combative in his warnings to voters to vote for his chosen Democrats -- and a bit more scared.
According to Fox News:
Obama said the November midterm elections would give Americans “a chance to restore sanity in our politics” during his 20-minute speech to a crowd of around 900 Democratic faithful at the Anaheim Convention Center, while warning voters of the risks of keeping Republicans in power.“If we don’t step up, things can get worse,” Obama said. “We have a chance to flip the House of Representatives; to say ‘Enough is enough.’”
Ah, yes, the restore sanity "narrative" as if the sanity problem he decries weren't the result of his own Deep State holdouts creating leaks and chaos. Nice try, pal.
But what's really vivid is the nervous, wary, warning tone of his, suggesting that he really really wants Democrats to vote for his minions ... because he himself feels endangered.
Starting with his own tired "narrative" about himself and his progressive values as the fount of all unity and progress, he gives us this:
“It’s always tempting for politicians for their own gain and for people in power to try to see if they can divide people, scapegoat folks, turn them on each other, because when that happens you get gridlock and government doesn’t work and people get cynical and decide to not participate," he said."That, unfortunately, has been a spiral we’ve been on for the last couple of years,” Obama continued. “If we don’t step up, things can get worse.”
As if those values weren't at the heart of why Obamacare got passed with strongarm tactics and zero Republican votes. Unifier indeed.
As for things getting 'worse,' don't make us gag. Is he trying to tell us that more economic growth is a disaster? More jobs are worse? A 2% unemployment rate instead of a 3% one? A rampaging North Korea instead of a docile one?
When he says 'worse,' it's pretty obvious that, this being Obama and all, he's talking about himself.
Two things are likely driving this.
One, the U.S. economy is soaring precisely because the Obama record of regulation, bureaucrat-hiring, taxes, crony capitalism, and central planningdiktats against unfavored industries is being dismantled. That's Obama's legacy, and as President Trump throws it out with the garbage, that's the end of Obama's miserable memory of wrongs against the voters.
His foreign policy record is another area of bad legacy going down the dispose-all. Weakness with Russia, North Korea, China, Cuba and Venezuela is being replaced by strength. And terrorists and religious lunatics from the Middle East are not only being called what they are, they're being checkmated as the U.S. finally stands up for its utterly reliable ally in Israel. More Obama legacy dismantled.
That has got to cheese him off, given the size of his ego. And with his own record of attempting to defend Obamacare, we know he's got a willingness to plot and connive to try to save it. - by any means necessary, as the Alinskyites say. His campaigning for a leftist congress, against all precedent for ex-presidents, is his bid to get Trump impeached, now that he can no longer do it from the inside.
But there's a second thing that has got to be scaring him: The unraveling of his Deep State plots against President Trump, the coup from within, going on as leftists in government continuously attempt to unseat and overthrow President Trump, the better to keep investigations against Deep State from reaching him. The unmaskings abuse, the slovenly issuance of FISA court warrants for surveillance against Americans, the IRS targeting of dissidents, Hillary Clinton's private illegal server, and quickie visas to Russian agents such as Natalia Veselnitskaya, to trap Trump, are all likely probes that can reach him from congressional investigators, such as House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes .... unless he is stopped.
Which is why, again, Obama is campaigning for a Democratic Congress - to switch the committee chairs and take the heat off himself. That would match his ominious tocsin tone as he campaigns for Congress in California.
Out on Facebook, the estimable writer and political observer Lisa Schiffren notes the obvious about this Obama campaign:
The Democrats have a problem. They need a 'face of the party.' It can't be the crazy lady who lost the last election. It can't be the clowns in the Senate from whom we heard this week. It can't be their still ambitious gerontocracy: Biden, Kerry, Warren, & Co. And little, unelected Octavio-Cortez is just too dumb. So it has to be Barry. And Barry still sounds reasonable, cool, and as if there is a modicum of probity behind his words. Still, we are all paying a lot, per month, for Obamacare, which was a drug on the economy, the Iran deal, the gutting of the US military, and the international weak posture that were his hallmark accomplishments. And no, we're not haters just because we think 1/3 of the population of Guatemala, and 1/5th of the population of Mexico are quite enough to import...We don't want to be a failed shithole nation. And that nationalism -- no, it isn't dark and hateful. It's about loving our culture and the principles behind it, which remain open to everyone, and not wanting to import more third world culture. So--Dems need someone to rally their troops, and get their millennials off the couch to vote. And we benefit by having it be a man who cannot speak without lecturing and condescending...which is off-putting...who is, after all, the proximate cause of the Trump presidency. For which, many thanks.
Sounds like Democrats have a lot of problems, none more than Obama. No wonder he sounds so scared.
Obama's bitter sore spot: The Trump economy
Back on center stage and partisan as ever, President Obama leaped back into politics Friday with a stemwinder stump speech on behalf of his fellow Democrats, declaring Democrats the fount of all progress, bringing up his favorite hobbyhorses, and, most notably, blasting Trump for his economy...before saying the economy was all his.
I think we know what Obama's sore spot is now.
His whole speech shows he has no idea how economies work. According to the Daily Caller citing the speech:
Obama mentioned the financial crisis at the beginning of his term saying "When I came into office in 2009 we were losing 800,000 jobs a month.""Millions of people were losing their homes. Many were worried we were entering into a second Great Depression. So we worked hard to end that crisis but also to break some of these longer-term trends," Obama said, "And initiated the longest streak of job creation on record. We covered another 20 million Americans with health insurance and we cut our deficits by more than half, partly by making sure people like me who have been given such amazing opportunities by this country, pay our fair share of taxes, to help folks coming up behind us.""I mention all this just so when you hear how great the economy is doing right now, let's just remember when this recovery started," Obama then said, "I'm glad it's continued but when you hear about this economic miracle that's been going on, when the job numbers come out, monthly job numbers, suddenly Republicans are saying 'It's a miracle.' I have to remind them, actually, those job numbers are the same as they were in 2015 and 2016."
According to The Hill:
The former president tore into Trump and the Republicans for offering tax cuts to wealthy Americans, while neglecting the impact that the reduced duties would have on the nation's deficit."With Republicans in control of Congress and the White House, without any checks or balances whatsoever, they've provided another $1.5 trillion in tax cuts to people like me, who I promise don't need it, and don't even pretend to pay for them," Obama said."It's supposed to be the party supposedly of fiscal conservatism," he continued. "Suddenly deficits do not matter."
...and...
Obama also suggested Trump gets too much credit for the soaring economy and that not enough credit is given to his administration by Republicans.
What makes this whole thing pathetic is that Trump really is governing differently compared with how Obama governed.
Trump gave us tax cuts, deregulation, and an equalization of international trade terms. Net result: Jobs are up, and black employment is reaching record highs, as is youth, Hispanic, and female employment. Those 3% unemployment numbers are good news for everyone.
Instead of admitting that and promising to go Trump one better the next time around, Obama described this tired scenario going on, as if it were still 2008:
For those with unique skills or access to technology and capital, a global market has meant unprecedented wealth. For those not so lucky, for the factory worker, for the office worker, or even middle managers, those same forces may have wiped out your job, or at least put you in no position to ask for a raise. As wages slowed and inequality accelerated, those at the top of the economic pyramid have been able to influence government to skew things even more in their direction: cutting taxes on the wealthiest Americans, unwinding regulations and weakening worker protections, shrinking the safety net. So you have come of age during a time of growing inequality, of fracturing of economic opportunity.
Poor fella. He still lives in the past.
Likely that's because, on some level, he can't reconcile what is happening now with his own sorry, sorry economic record.
Obama failed to consider the economy important at all during his two terms, and as for jobs, well, all we heard was that some politically connected cronies were getting "green jobs." As for industrial private-sector jobs, "those jobs aren't coming back." He was so neglectful of the economy during his eight long years in office that the only logical conclusion one can deduce from it was that he didn't want a good economy.
Instead of any serious moves on the economy – he didn't even bust the fast-buck bankers who triggered the 2008 meltdown – he focused on a trillion-dollar stimulus, driving up the massive U.S. debt load, which only ended up bailing out failing city government pensions. His economic plan focused on welfare-shoveling for "poverty alleviation," as if redistributed money actually creates wealth. He focused on centrally planned "green jobs" and subsidized unsustainable green energy schemes, leaving the landscape littered with bird Cuisinarts when the cash ran out. He favored bailouts of failing industries such as the auto industry yet also imposed impossible-to-fulfill green mandates on fuel efficiency on these same automakers. He had some cold spots for the coal and oil industries, drawing a rebuke from a federal judge for his illegal ban on drilling (while promising to buy oil instead from Brazil) and only late and desperately claiming credit for the fracking revolution, which came despite, not because of, his administration. He was also all in for imposing occasional aimless punitive tariffs to please Big Labor, and he delayed critical strategic free trade pacts with allies such as Colombia and South Korea. All industries where people work with their hands – whether farms, fisheries, timber, or mines – were his targets. He damaged the workforce by allowing millions of unchecked, unvetted illegal immigrants into the country to drive down wages and bring in opiates, which had a devastating impact on the heartland. As for jobs, the jobs Obama created were government bureaucrat jobs, siccing the regulators onto the producers and padding up the welfare bureaucrats to extend handouts to the non-producers. On his watch, the Washington, D.C. suburbs grew fat and wealthy, while the rest of the country, grotesquely taxed and regulated, as well as demonized as "the rich," fell into shambles.
Obama during his terms repeatedly dismissed tax cuts, which a Republican Congress put in front of him and he refused to so much as consider. He's still spouting the line that tax cuts all go to the rich, and he claims there is no connection among the Trump tax cuts, the falling black, Hispanic, youth, and female employment rates. And that 4.2% GDP boom, coming up in the second year of President Trump's administration? He says that's his.
It's such garbage.
Note also that he still believes the same tired leftist canard that if you cut taxes, you will run deficits because taxpayer behavior never responds to incentives. Investor's Business Daily, which is the expert on these matters, notes that tax receipts went up 9% for the government as the U.S. economy boomed. That's bad news for Obama's beliefs, but hasn't stopped his lies.
Here's the hard reality: Obama could have had Trump's economy if he had signed on to tax cuts. One wonders if it eats at him that he didn't. Like any Democrat, he thinks tax cuts are a "scam" because he thinks allowing people to control their own money is a bad thing, and all of their moneys are his. Yet the economy is an "it" – it's not a partisan thing. It behaves exactly the same way whether a Republican cuts the taxes or a Democrat cuts the taxes. It simply goes up. Want an economy to improve, cut taxes. This isn't complicated.
He failed. And President Trump's amazing success, that success that may well propel a red wave come November if voters want to keep things like this has got to eat at him as he feebly insists that the economy is all his.
This is wretched. What a nasty, bitter little man, trying to take credit for an economy he never understood. What we are seeing here is a big reason why Republican voters must go to the polls in November. Obama's sorry record and miserable self-justification is providing the reason.
Image credit: YouTube screenshot.
OPEN BORDERS: The Democrat Party’s Weapon of Mass Destruction on the American Worker
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2016/09/the-la-raza-mexican-crime-tidal-wave.html
"Los Angeles saw all crime rise in 2015: violent crime up 19.9 percent, homicides up 10.2 percent, shooting victims up 12.6 percent, rapes up 8.6 percent, robberies up 12.3 percent, and aggravated assault up 27.5 percent,"Landry said.”
NANCY PELOSI:
SHE DESTROYED THE STATE of CALIFORNIA and SAW A VISION OF 49 MORE MEXIFORNIAS TO SERVE THE SUPER-RICH WITH CHEAP LABOR.
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2018/05/nancy-pelosi-she-destroyed-state-of.html
THE COST OF THE DEMOCRAT PARTY’S OPEN BORDERS AND MORE WELFARE FOR INVADING MEXICANS HAS BEEN STAGGERING!
*
NANCY PELOSI and the LA RAZA “The Race” Mexican Welfare State
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2018/06/nancy-pelosi-and-building-of-modern-la.html
“Do we really need a House Speaker whose every action is calculated to enhance her own financial interests, instead of focusing on how porous borders will affect the security of everyday American citizens?”
One in every eleven persons born in Mexico has gone to the U.S. The National Review reported that in 2014 $1.87 billion was spent on incarcerating illegal immigrant criminals….Now add hundreds of billions for welfare and remittances! MICHAEL BARGO, Jr…… for the AMERICAN THINKER.COM
Pollak: Democrats Opposed Every Policy Boosting the Economy
Former President Barack Obama tried to claim credit on Friday for President Donald Trump’s economic success.
This would be the same former president who mocked Trump’s promises on jobs in 2016. “What magic wand do you have?” he taunted.
The reality is that Democrats, including Obama, have opposed every policy that is responsible for the current economic boom:
– Tax cuts: Democrats unanimously opposed the Republican tax cuts that Trump signed into law last year, which lowered the corporate tax rate to an internationally-competitive 21% and lowered tax rates for the middle class as well as high earners. Under Obama, Democrats tried to reverse all of the Bush tax cuts in 2012, and Republicans fought them until the very edge of the “fiscal cliff” — until the president and his party agreed to allow Bush’s tax cuts for the middle class to become permanent.
– Deregulation: As soon as Trump took office, Republicans used the Congressional Review Act to toss out many regulations that Obama had neglected to notify Congress about before leaving office. The president also used executive orders to reverse or simplify many rules the Obama administration had implemented that were obstacles to investment and economic growth.
– Obamacare fixes: Obamacare was a major drag on the economy in two ways. First, it imposed an individual mandate that forced everyone to buy health insurance — often at expensive prices. Second, it created new uncertainty in the economy, since investors anticipated that the Obama administration would follow through on promises to regulate other industries. The GOP repealed the individual mandate — over unanimous Democratic opposition — and the Trump administration relaxed the rules on Obamacare to allow individuals to buy simpler and cheaper short-term plans rather than expensive Obamacare plans. Partly as a result, premiums are growing slowly. The Associated Press reportedFriday that some people will pay less next year.
– Energy: Obama literally tried to shut down the coal industry, tried to stop the Keystone XL pipeline, and discouraged oil and gas drilling. Yet the strongest economic growth during his tenure came from the booming oil shale industry, which created many new jobs while keeping fuel prices low for the economy as a whole. Republicans immediately reversed his policies, allowing the energy sector to grow even more — though Obama continued to target “corporate polluters” in his speech Friday.
– Spending caps: Though fiscal discipline is not exactly a priority of the current Congress, Republicans forced Democrats to accept spending caps after taking the House in 2010. That restraint arguably helped restore a sense of economic stability.
Undeterred, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and the Democrats are running on promises to raise taxes, restore regulations, expand Obamacare into “Medicare for all,” limit fossil fuels, and spend more on government programs. A box of “magic wands.”
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
Pelosi - Illegals - Sunkist - Her investments!
ANYONE KNOW IF THE OL’ BARONESS AND CLOSET REPUBLICAN USES ILLEGALS AT THER ST. HELENA, NAPA WINERY? SHE’S LOTHE TO PAY LEGALS A LIVING WAGES. BUT THEN THE CATASTROPHIC NAPA FIRE WAS CAUSED BY ONE OF HER ILLEGALS, SO PERHAPS HER PLACE BURNED DOWN!
Pelosi's corrupt insider passing of bills that make her rich.
________________________________________
Check for yourself
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's home House District includes San Francisco.
Star-Kist Tuna's headquarters are in San Francisco, Pelosi's home district.
Star-Kist is owned by Del Monte Foods and is a major contributor to Pelosi.
Star-Kist is the major employer in American Samoa employing 75% of the Samoan workforce.
Paul Pelosi, Nancy's husband, owns $17 million dollars of Star-Kist stock.
In January, 2007 when the minimum wage was increased from $5.15 to $7.25, Pelosi had American Samoa exempted from the increase so Del Monte would not have to pay the higher wage. This would make Del Monte products less expensive than their competition's.
Last week when the huge bailout bill was passed, Pelosi added an earmark to the final bill adding $33 million dollars for an "economic development credit in American Samoa".
Pelosi has called the Bush Administration "corrupt".
Check some more for yourself
WAR ON THE AMERICA WORKER: FEINSTEIN, PELOSI, OBAMA, and the CLINTON CRIME DUAL
“Senator Dianne Feinstein warned, at the time, they had to solve this crisis now—of immigrants coming in illegally and getting these jobs.”
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2018/05/senator-dianne-feinstein-looking-to-buy.html
“The Democrats had abandoned their
working-class base to chase what they
pretended was a racial group when
what they were actually chasing was the
momentum of unlimited migration”.
DANIEL GREENFIELD / FRONT PAGE
MAGAZINE
PATHOLOGICAL LIAR BARACK OBAMA MOCKS TRUMP
SOARING POVERTY AND DRUG ADDICTION UNDER OBAMA
SOARING POVERTY AND DRUG ADDICTION UNDER OBAMA
"These figures present a scathing indictment of the social order that prevails in America, the world’s wealthiest country, whose government proclaims itself to be the globe’s leading democracy. They are just one manifestation of the human toll taken by the vast and all-pervasive inequality and mass poverty.
A record $31.5 trillion hoarded by corporate oligarchs
8 September 2018
According to the Wealth-X World Ultra Wealth Report 2018, 255,810 “ultra high net worth” (UHNW) individuals with a minimum $30 million in wealth now collectively own $31.5 trillion, an increase of 16.3 percent between 2016 and 2017.
In other words, a group of oligarchs equal in number to the population of Plano, Texas or Nottingham, England own more than the poorest 80 percent of the world—some 5.6 billion people.
The figures of wealth concentration are hard to fathom:
* In North America, the total number of UHNW individuals rose 9.5 percent to 90,440 and their wealth rose 13.1 percent to $11 trillion.
* In Europe, the UHNW population rose 12.8 percent to 72,570, with a total wealth of $8.8 trillion, up 13.5 percent.
* In Asia, there were 68,970 UHNW individuals in 2017, an 18.5 percent increase from 2016. Their wealth shot up 26.7 percent during this period to $8.4 trillion.
* By 2022, the UHNW population is expected to increase to 360,390 people, whose combined wealth “is projected to rise to $44.3 trillion, implying an additional $12.8 trillion of newly created wealth over the next five years.”
* Those 22.3 million people with a net worth over $1 million own a combined $91.7 trillion, almost triple the combined wealth of the poorest 90 percent of the world’s population.
The Wealth X report makes clear that the rise in wealth concentration is the product of deliberate policies enacted by governments all over the world. It credits loose monetary policy—market liberalization in China, tax reform and corporate deregulation in India, and massive tax cuts for the wealthy in the US—that the report notes were “aimed squarely at providing generous exemptions to corporations and the ultra wealthy.”
In Volume 1 of Capital, Karl Marx, the
founder of scientific socialism, wrote:
“Accumulation of wealth at one pole is,
therefore, at the same time accumulation of
misery, agony of toil slavery, ignorance,
brutality, mental degradation, at the opposite
pole.”
founder of scientific socialism, wrote:
“Accumulation of wealth at one pole is,
therefore, at the same time accumulation of
misery, agony of toil slavery, ignorance,
brutality, mental degradation, at the opposite
pole.”
Under capitalism, the wealth of the super-rich comes from the exploitation of the international working class.
* Half the world lacks access to healthcare and 100 million people are forced into extreme poverty each year due to healthcare expenses (World Health Organization, 2017).
* 1.2 billion people lack access to electricity (Rockefeller Foundation, 2017).
* 2 billion people use a drinking water source that is contaminated with feces (World Health Organization, 2018).
* 8.6 million people die each year from lack of healthcare or poor quality healthcare ( The Lancet, 2018).
* 750 million adults do not know how to read or write (UNESCO, 2017).
* By 2020, 1.6 billion people will lack access to secure, adequate housing (World Resources Institute, 2017).
* 50.5 million children under the age of 5 are “wasting” due to malnutrition (World Bank, 2018).
* 850 million people suffer from “chronic undernourishment” (UN Food and Agriculture Organization, 2016).
* 4 billion people do not have internet access (UNESCO, 2017).
Even in the most advanced countries of Europe and North America, the working class faces increasingly precarious conditions dominated by declining life expectancy, greater incidences of suicide and drug/alcohol abuse, growing student debt, declining wages and cuts to social programs. In the United States, home to roughly one third of the world’s ultra-wealthy individuals, some 69 percent of people have less than $1,000 in total savings.
The international working class has no representation in any government or any capitalist political party, and the political establishment is dominated by the super-rich. The billionaire and multimillionaire “ultra-high net worth” individuals deliberate and reach decisions regarding state policy and the distribution of resources entirely behind the backs of the population.
All the official and semi-official institutions of government, including academia, the corporate media, and the trade unions, are subordinated to the interests of the modern aristocracy and serve to constrain and block the development of a unified movement of the working class for social equality. As inequality grows, the ruling elite are preparing for the threat of social revolution by rescinding basic democratic rights, censoring the internet, establishing permanent states of emergency, and elevating extreme-right-wing and neo-fascistic parties to poison the airwaves with racism, xenophobia and nationalism.
However, the working class is not only an oppressed class, it is also a powerful revolutionary social force.
Advances in technology, communications and transportation have led to a significant expansion of the numeric size of the international working class. Over the last 50 years, countries like India, China, Nigeria, South Africa, Brazil, Turkey, Iran and many more have been transformed from countries with relatively small working-class populations to massive centers of industrial output involving tens of millions or billions of workers.
At the same time, globalization has linked workers in all corners of the world together in the process of production. The internet has made it possible for workers to communicate and strategize with one another across workplaces and national borders. The democratic and revolutionary potential of the internet has made it a target of censorship by the ruling class around the world, led by the efforts by US-based corporations Google, Facebook and Twitter to downgrade and hide left-wing websites like the World Socialist Web Site .
The Wealth X report points to the immense revolutionary potential in the present situation. As Friedrich Engels wrote in Anti-Duhring :
“The growing perception that existing social institutions are unreasonable and unjust, that reason has become unreason, and right wrong, is only proof that in the modes of production and exchange changes have silently taken place with which the social order, adapted to earlier economic conditions, is no longer in keeping. From this it also follows that the means of getting rid of the incongruities that have been brought to light must also be present, in a more or less developed condition, within the changed modes of production themselves.”
The Wealth X report confirms that the resources for the transformation of the planet on an egalitarian basis already exist.
No aristocracy has ever given up power simply because their existence is a brake on the development of the productive forces. To free up the tens of trillions of dollars needed to meet the needs of the world population requires a socialist revolution.
Eric London
MEXICO: AMERICA’S DRUG DEALER!
OBAMA-CLINTONOMICS to serve the filthy
rich
The same period has seen a massive growth of social inequality, with income and wealth concentrated at the very top of American society to an extent not seen since the 1920s.
“This study follows reports released over the past several months documenting rising mortality rates among US workers due to drug addiction and suicide, high rates of infant mortality, an overall leveling off of life expectancy, and a growing gap between the life expectancy of the bottom rung of income earners compared to those at the top.”
THE CRONY CLASS:
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.”
INCOME PLUMMETS UNDER OBAMA AND
HIS WALL STREET CRONIES
HIS WALL STREET CRONIES
collapse of household income in the US… STILL BILLIONS IN WELFARE HANDED TO ILLEGALS… they already get our jobs and are voting for more!
THE DEATH of CALIFORNIA:
CALIFORNIA UNDER MEX-OCCUPATION: POVERTY, GANG CRIME, STAGGERING LA RAZA WEFLARE STATE on LEGALS’ BACKS
SHOCKING REPORT OF POVERTY, CRIME AND LA RAZA SUPREMACY
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2018/05/california-passes-uk-to-become-worlds.html
THE INVITED INVADING HORDES: IT’S ALL ABOUT KEEPING WAGES DEPRESSED!
"In the decade following the financial crisis of 2007-2008, the capitalist class has delivered powerful blows to the social position of the working class. As a result, the working class in the US, the world’s “richest country,” faces levels of economic hardship not seen since the 1930s."
"Inequality has reached unprecedented levels: the wealth of America’s three richest people now equals the net worth of the poorest half of the US population."
BOOK:…..TRAGIC!
THE DEATH GAP: INEQUALITY IS KILLING
AMERICA!
CALL IT OBAMA-CLINTONOMICS OR
TRUMPERNOMICS FOR THE SUPER RICH!
AMERICA UNRAVELS:
Millions of children go hungry as the super- rich gorge themselves and ILLEGALS SUCK IN BILLIONS IN WELFARE!
"The top 10 percent of Americans now own roughly three-quarters of all household wealth."
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2017/08/america-unravels-millions-of-children.html
"While telling workers there is “not enough money” for wage increases, or to fund social programs, both parties hailed the recent construction of the U.S.S. Gerald Ford, a massive aircraft carrier that cost $13 billion to build, stuffing the pockets of numerous contractors and war profiteers."
THE GLOBALIST LEGACY OF A SOCIOPATH
Obama warns against “cynicism” at Ohio State commencement address
At a commencement address on Sunday at Ohio State University, President Barack Obama counseled students not to be “cynical” about government and politics.
There was an almost comically absurd element to Obama’s remarks, delivered with his characteristic demagogy and attempted gestures at profundity. In his first four years in office, along with the first months of his second term, Obama proceeded to systematically repudiate every campaign pledge and to deflate every illusion that, with the assistance of a highly coordinated marketing campaign, led millions of people, including a large number of young people, to vote for him in 2008.
The Obama administration handed trillions of dollars to the banks; has overseen a massive attack on public education; is leading the campaign to slash Social Security and Medicare, the core federal retirement and health care programs; expanded the war in Afghanistan, led a war against Libya, and is preparing a new war in Syria; and has asserted the right to kill anyone, anywhere, including US citizens, without due process.
After this record of service to the corporate elite, he declares: “When we turn away and get discouraged and cynical… we grant our silent consent to someone who will gladly claim it. That’s how we end up with lobbyists who set the agenda; and policies detached from what middle class families face every day; the well-connected who publicly demand that Washington stay out of their business—and then whisper in government’s ear for special treatment that you don’t get.”
The references to the “whispers” of the wealthy and well-connected is particularly rich, coming only a week after Obama nominated Penny Pritzker for commerce secretary. The selection of Pritzker—a longtime Obama confidant, billionaire heiress and owner of a private equity company—only underscores the fact that the administration is a government of, by and for the financial aristocracy. She will be the wealthiest person ever to serve in a presidential cabinet.
Previous to his appointment of Pritzker, Obama appointed Mary Jo White to head the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), one of the main financial regulators. White made millions of dollars as an attorney for banks responsible for the financial crisis, including Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase, whose CEO, Jamie Dimon, called White the “perfect choice” to head the SEC.
Practically every cabinet appointee of Obama’s has close personal connections to the ruling class, many having come directly from corporate boardrooms. Under Obama’s watch not a single executive at a major financial firm has been criminally tried, much less sent to jail, for their role in the financial crisis.
As a whole, Obama’s speech was characterized by a complete separation from the actual conditions facing the graduates he spoke to, who confront joblessness, falling wages, and a lifetime in debt. “You have every reason to believe that your future is bright,” he told his audience. “You’re graduating into an economy and a job market that is steadily healing.”
He added later, “The trajectory of this great nation should give you hope.” Really? This is under conditions in which over 11 percent of college graduates are unemployed a year after getting out of school, and another 16.1 percent simply drop out of the labor force, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Most of those who do find a job are paid barely enough to get by, let alone pay off student loans. Wages for young adults are falling faster than any other part of the population, and are down by 6 percent in the past four years.
Most of the students that Obama addressed Sunday will be so burdened with debt that they will delay or have to completely put off starting a family or buying a home.
It is not surprising that Obama should neglect to dwell on this disastrous situation, because his administration bears responsibility for it. In the government-sponsored restructuring of the auto industry, the White House insisted that the wages of new-hires be slashed in half, setting the stage for vast reduction of wages throughout the economy.
Obama sought to paint opposition to the government’s violation of democratic rights as right-wing hysterics. “Unfortunately, you’ve grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity,” Obama said. “They’ll warn that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices.”
This comes from a president who has personally overseen the illegal assassination of thousands of people, including at least three American citizens, in weekly “Terror Tuesday” meetings. The assertions of executive power have been systematically expanded, going beyond those claimed even by the Bush administration. The specter of a police state—the response of the ruling class to growing social opposition—is in fact lurking around the corner.
The moribund state of American politics, of which the Obama administration is a principal expression, is, according to the president, the fault of the American people. “Democracy doesn’t function without your active participation,” he admonished. If politicians “don’t represent you the way you want… you’ve got to let them know that’s not okay. And if they let you down, there’s a built-in day in November where you can really let them know that’s not okay.”
Such limp efforts to encourage illusions in the viability of the “democratic process” in the United States will not go very far. The experience of the past four years has not passed in vain. Millions of people, including many of those in the audience at Ohio State, are drawing the quite justified, if “cynical,” conclusion that the entire political and economic system is rotten to the cor
"But the immense profits produced on the backs of its workforce are not used to improve living conditions for the masses of working people; they enrich a narrow layer of the super-rich.
By E.P. Milligan
7 September 2018
Amazon market capitalization surpasses $1 trillion
By E.P. Milligan
7 September 2018
Amazon’s market capitalization reached over $1 trillion in value on Tuesday, making it the second company to do so in US history after Apple. Although Amazon’s share value receded to $2,039.51 by the end of Tuesday trading, Amazon’s share value has soared by 108 percent over the past year alone.
The growth of massive corporate behemoths like Amazon is not the product of its supposed “creative ingenuity.” Amazon’s soaring profits, like those of Apple, are the direct result of the brutal exploitation of its workforce. Amazon and its owners stand atop a mountain of broken bones, hernias, torn knee and back muscles, heat strokes, stress-induced asthma attacks, and countless other lifelong bodily injuries.
The historic character of the rise of Amazon demonstrates once again that the inevitable outcome of capitalist development is monopolization. Amazon exemplifies how technological advances are subordinated to the profit motive under capitalism.
Amazon is a massive operation, international in nature, which now employs 566,000 people across many countries and 5 continents. It utilizes state-of-the-art technology and information systems to mobilize and integrate the worldwide distribution of millions of goods. But the immense profits produced on the backs of its workforce are not used to improve living conditions for the masses of working people; they enrich a narrow layer of the super-rich.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos made $1.8 billion on Tuesday alone. Broken down, this means Bezos made $20,833 per second, an amount roughly equivalent to what an Amazon worker makes in a year. He made $67 billion this year—equivalent to $8 million an hour. Bezos is now the richest man on earth, with a net worth of $164.7 billion. Based on the average US annual income of $28,446, it would take an Amazon worker over five million years to accumulate an amount equal to their CEO’s wealth—about equal to the time since humans genetically split off from gorillas and chimpanzees.
The pay for many US workers is even lower. Base pay at Amazon is $12 per hour, which amounts to less than $25,000 per year.
Coverage by the International Amazon Workers’ Voice (IAWV) newsletter has cited reports by workers at multiple facilities who have seen coworkers sleeping in their cars. Inside the facilities, workers face a high-tech dystopia, characterized by long hours and an authoritarian industrial regime. “It is like being tortured in your mind and your body for 10 hours a night,” one worker, Shannon Allen said. Another worker described the work as “modern day slavery.”
A worker in the UK said that the company penalizes workers for getting hurt. “Someone hurt on the job? It gets raised to a leader who then calls first aid, they take a statement then ask if you are returning to work or going home. Going home incurs a half-point penalty.”
All over the world, the company forces workers to labor at fast, tiring, and often dangerous speeds. The UK worker said: “I still have near misses and collisions from people rushing…now it’s faster, faster, faster. It’s all about being on the go, meeting rates and targets.”
Amazon is ramping up the exploitation of its workforce as it prepares for another massive expansion. Last year, the company announced plans to open a second headquarters, though the decision as to where the facilities will be located has not yet been finalized. It also recently purchased 20,000 vans from Mercedes-Benz, with which the company plans to establish a network of contractors to carry out their last-mile delivery services. This development will deal a harsh blow to the US Postal Service, which currently handles 40 percent of last-mile deliveries. It also has begun to muscle its way into the $88 billion online ad market, with clear plans to surpass tech giants Google and Facebook.
Amazon workers have begun to fight back against their grueling working conditions and low pay. Strikes broke out at facilities in Spain, Germany, Poland, Italy and France this summer, and hundreds of workers have written in to the IAWV to describe the brutal exploitation they face at the hands of the company.
The ruling class has begun efforts to neutralize the growing opposition to social inequality, low wages, and sweatshop conditions. In particular, the Democratic Party is seeking to take control of these struggles and direct them back into safe channels like the Teamsters Union and the political orbit of Bernie Sanders, who endorsed Hillary Clinton for president after the 2016 Democratic primaries.
On Wednesday, Sanders introduced a bill that would tax corporations for the federal benefits their employees receive. The bill, named Stop Bad Employers by Zeroing Out Subsidies or “BEZOS Act,” would establish a 100% tax on companies equal to the public assistance programs their employees depend on to live.
This legislation does nothing to address the unsafe conditions workers face and will not raise wages or lead to an improvement in their lives. It is significant that the bill instead is intended to provide the government money which it will likely hand back over to the corporations in the form of tax cuts and deregulation. On top of this, the bill’s authors and sponsors know it has no chance of passage.
In contrast, the Socialist Party demands the immediate seizure of all of Jeff Bezos’s assets and their immediate distribution to meet the needs of the working class, including by massive expenditures on public transportation, healthcare, education, and the provision of food, water and housing to those in need. The corporation must be transformed into a public utility to be run not for the private profit of a few but to meet human need.
To accomplish this historical task, Amazon workers require organization—not through the corrupt trade unions that take their dues money to pay the salaries of bureaucrats—but fighting organizations run by and for the workers themselves. Such organizations, workplace committees, will be based on the principles of democracy and workers’ control of production, and will fight to educate the working class as a whole about the conditions Amazon workers face while inviting other sections of the working class to join in a common struggle against the massive corporations.
"Sanders also cited a recent report from the New Food Economy, which found that one in three Amazon employees in Arizona received food stamps in 2017."
Bernie Sanders Introduces ‘Stop BEZOS Act’ to Bill Companies for Federal Welfare Programs
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) threw some not-so-subtle shade at Amazon and its CEO Jeff Bezos on Wednesday when he introduced a bill that would allow the government to charge big corporations for the federal welfare programs its low-income workers use.
The “Stop BEZOS Act,” which stands for “Stop Bad Employers by Zeroing Out Subsidies Act,” would stick big companies with a bill for federal welfare programs commonly used by their low-wage workers and stem the flow taxpayer-funded subsidies for companies paying their workers low wages.
“At a time of massive income and wealth inequality, when the 3 wealthiest people in America own more wealth than the bottom 50 percent and when 52 percent of all new income goes to the top one percent, the American people are tired of subsidizing multi-billionaires who own some of the largest and most profitable corporations in America,” Sanders said in a statement.
The Vermont senator said that Amazon — which became the second company to be valued at over $1 trillion on Tuesday — is one of the companies responsible for using the federal government to subsidize its workforce, paying more than half of its employees an average of $13.67 an hour, or $28,500 a year.
Sanders also cited a recent report from the New Food Economy, which found that one in three Amazon employees in Arizona received food stamps in 2017.
Amazon, however, refuted those statistics in a blog post, claiming that the company provides “highly competitive wages” and “a comprehensive benefits package including health insurance, disability insurance, retirement savings plans, and company stock” to its employees.
The trend of Amazon employees receiving food stamps is nothing new, however. Another report from January found that more than 1,400 Amazon workers in Ohio were on food stamps, and ten percent of company employees in the area claimed some form of federal assistance.
The online retail giant not only relies on the government to subsidize their workforce, but it is also one of the top sponsors of the H-1B visa — which is extended to foreign workers. The company requested 2,515 H-1B visas for foreign workers in 2017, far surpassing the number of foreign workers requested by companies like Google and Facebook.
BLOG: FEW HAVE PUSHED HARDER FOR AMNESTY TO KEEP WAGES DEPRESSED THAN BERNIE SANDERS!
But the trend of companies like Amazon relying on the government to help provide cheap labor, largely from other countries, may already be on the downswing.
Because President Donald Trump recently placed a cap on the number of foreign workers entering the U.S., Bezos and other retail warehouse employers are being pressured to increase their wages for their massive workforce and potentially rely less on imported labor.
ASSAULT ON THE AMERICAN WORKER…. Amazon’s JEFF BEZOS PLAN FOR A NEW AMERICAN SLAVERY
"Amazon is a massive wrecking machine consuming American retail. It's looting the economy and leaving behind rubble. " --- DANIEL GREENFIELD FRONTPAGE MAG
MODERN SLAVER JEFF BEZOS
AMAZON’S ASSAULT ON AMERICA CONTINUES
Amazon, the multinational online retail conglomerate, is importing more foreign workers to the United States to take coveted tech industry jobs than Facebook and Google combined. JOHN BINDER
"Amazon is a massive wrecking machine consuming American retail. It's looting the economy and leaving behind rubble. " --- DANIEL GREENFIELD FRONTPAGE MAG
"Today, each of the top 5 billionaires owns as much as 750 million people, more than the total population of Latin America and double the population of the US."
“A comprehensive new report released Sunday by the New York-based labor rights watchdog China Labor Watch (CLW) has shed new light on the barbaric and illegal practices that Amazon employs to boost its profits by driving down production costs on the backs of factory workers at the company’s electronics assembly plants in China.”
JEFF BEZOS of AMAZON DECLARES THAT AMERICAN-BORN SLAVES ARE NOT CHEAP ENOUGH. CHINA MUST DELIVER THE REAL SLAVE LABOR!
“A comprehensive new report released Sunday by the New York-based labor rights watchdog China Labor Watch (CLW) has shed new light on the barbaric and illegal practices that Amazon employs to boost its profits by driving down production costs on the backs of factory workers at the company’s electronics assembly plants in China.”
Amazon, the multinational online retail conglomerate, is importing more foreign workers to the United States to take coveted tech industry jobs than Facebook and Google combined. JOHN BINDER
AMAZON’S JEFF BEZOS IS THE FACE OF
MODERN SLAVERY!
The gains for employees are a novel pain for the investors and employers who have been able to hold down wages for decades because the federal government is trying to grow the economy via cheap-labor legal immigration.
“INVESTORS” HAVE AND WILL DESTROY
THIS NATION IF IT WOULD IMPACT THE
NEXT QUARTER’S EARNINGS!
Amazon, the multinational online retail conglomerate, is importing more foreign workers to the United States to take coveted tech industry jobs than Facebook and Google combined. JOHN BINDER
Retail and wage blather abounds
Since the economy is so good and a significant majority of supposed journalists want to destroy President Trump and elect Democrats, they search far and wide for what they perceive are negative stories with which they can propagandize the public. The following is a story by the Washington Post News Service:
James Collins has been working at Walmart for six years. His pay: $11 an hour, the same as what a new hire would make on their [sic] first day of work.Collins, a 65-year-old maintenance worker at a Dallas store, joined the company when the starting hourly wage was $8. Over the years, Walmart has steadily raised that rate, in part to attract workers in a tightening labor market. But data shows that pay for longer-term workers like Collins has remained stubbornly stagnant."There's no appreciation for experience anymore," Collins said. "Someone could walk off the street today and get paid the same as me."
Their idea is to tell the public that retail employment is not good or fair.
Start by noticing that the story is about Walmart, the country's largest employer. I have to wonder why it isn't about Amazon, since Jeff Bezos owns both Amazon and the Post.
The article actually has some interesting pieces of information.
The writers essentially complain that a worker who is 65 and who has been there for six years isn't being rewarded for his seniority because new workers are also starting around the same $11 an hour that he is making. I actually find it fascinating that Walmart has given him a 37.5% raise over six years from $8 to $11 per hour. Isn't that amazing that the largest employer gave around 6% per year even though the government didn't require it to?
We are always told that the government needs to raise the minimum wage, but what we see is that the private sector is actually doing it, because capitalism and the marketplace are pushing wages up.
The writers also complain that the worker isn't being rewarded for experience and seniority. Haven't unions always done that? Doesn't a three-year electrician, plumber, carpenter, teamster, etc. essentially make the same as other union members who have been on the job for ten, twenty, or thirty years? I don't remember the media complaining about that.
The Washington Post article continues like this:
Retailers have made headlines for raising their minimum hourly wages in quick succession – CVS to $11, Costco to $13, Target to $15 by 2020 – while 29 states and the District now require that employers pay more than the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. But economists say those gains have not translated to higher wages among mid-level workers.The average hourly wage paid to retail workers dropped to $18.58 in June, from $18.65 a month earlier, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (Year over year, the average hourly retail wage has risen 2 percent, from $18.15.)Economists cite a number of factors, including a decline in union jobs and fewer opportunities to move up within the industry. Add to that high turnover rates and a trend toward part-time work, and the result has been a growing group of retail workers who may be making higher minimum wages but continue to feel stuck in low-paying positions.Chief Executive Doug McMillon, meanwhile, received $22.8 million in compensation last year, up 2 percent from the year before, according to company filings.
Then the article says retail wages were down 7 cents per hour last month. I assume that the statistical sample may have shown that, but I would challenge the journalists to find retail workers whose salary was cut last month. It's a go-go economy, and something else would have to be at work if wages really fell. The article notes that several retailers are raising their wages, and more people are quitting their jobs each month than ever, and there are one million fewer part-time jobs than when Trump took office, while Hispanic, black, and female unemployment, along with total unemployment, are near all-time lows. People over twenty-five without a high school diploma have also seen their unemployment rate drop from 7.6% to a record low 5.1%.
Now, which of those pieces of information would make a journalist believe that existing retail workers are taking a pay cut?
Here's something more like it, from Bloomberg:
Americans' confidence in employment prospects is soaring as the labor market tightens. The latest proof: A record number are voluntarily quitting to seek better jobs.Some 3.56 million workers left positions in May, the most in data back to 2000, and up from the prior month's 3.35 million, Labor Department data showed Tuesday. That pushed up the quits rate, which measures quitters as a share of employed people, to a 17-year high of 2.4 percent from 2.3 percent. With more workers feeling assured of finding better employment, sustained wage gains may soon follow.
Then we get the gratuitous comment about CEO pay to gin up hate for the rich. The stories we always see are similar to the garbage the Economic Policy Institute puts out. Take a gander:
According to a report from the Economic Policy Institute, the average CEO pay is 271 times the nearly $58,000 annual average pay of the typical American worker.
All this kvetching, while the actual median pay of 210,160 CEOs in May of 2017, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, was $183,270.
The number is easy to find, but obviously, it doesn't fit the Democrat agenda, so it is effectively hidden from the public.
Left-wing senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders earn almost as much as a median CEO in the U.S at $174,000 per year, and their pensions and other benefits dwarf those of the average CEO, yet they stir up hate against business-owners.
Here are the salaries of some of the pundits who get paid to basically regurgitate Democrat talking points :Joe Scarborough: $4 million; Rachel Maddow: $7 million; Chris Matthews: $5 million; Chris Cuomo: $2.5 million.
I understand why young people think socialism is good: they have been misled by professors. I do not understand why seasoned journalists would spew forth such nonsense. Capitalism is what helps lift most people out of poverty, not socialism.
The Democrat agenda of government-run health care, free college, higher minimum wages (no matter what the local market is), massively higher taxes, open borders, sanctuary cities and states, zero fossil fuels, and massively higher taxes would destroy America, yet that is what most of the media supports on a daily basis.
Thank God we elected Trump to make America great again, instead of Hillary, who would have continued the path toward destruction of the greatest economy that ever existed.
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