by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy If Social Security were not working, if Social Security were not solvent, Wall St 'fat cats' would not be scheming to steal it! Social Security is in danger of becoming a victim of its own success.
GOP supporters of the big banksters propose that Social Security be 'privatized', a code word for: "let's let the big banksters play monopoly with that money. Let's export that money, squirrel it away in offshore bank accounts where working folk will never see it or benefit from it!"
Like monies blown up and/or otherwise 'wasted' in war, monies tagged 'social security' will be secured for speculative or destructive use by the very, very rich, the only people to have benefited from ruinous wars of aggression against Iraq, et al. Should this come to pass, not a cent of that money will go toward the creation of a single job in the U.S.
The fat cats are not worried about whether Social Security works or not! That's just eye wash, a plausible sounding 'talking point', a pre-text by which the money may be seized, or, 'privatized'! The fat cats
do not care about you or your retirement. If you think they do, you are incredibly and hopelessly naive.
Bush, were he not in hiding, may call this 'class warfare'. And so it is! It IS class warfare and the GOP has been waging it against anyone not financing GOP campaigns with $millions$.
What would/will/have the ruling elites do/done with your money? So far --
death and destruction tops the list of America's last remaining industries. Death and destruction are, in fact, out chief exports. That's why the U.S. is at the bottom of the
CIA's World Factbook - Current Account Balance with the world's largest, negative 'Current Account Balance', often called the balance of trade deficit. China is on
top with the world's largest
positive current account balance.
That outcome is easily traced to treasonous deals struck by George Bush Sr in advance of Nixon's largely ceremonial visit to the Forbidden City. It was later, as I recall, that Bush Sr puked in the lap of the Japanese Prime Minister, perhaps remembering the sickening deal struck earlier with China.
While China exports product, the U.S. exports death and destruction. Neither have enriched anyone but members of the U.S. ruling elite of just one percent of the total population. Their numbers are growing smaller as their 'shares' of total wealth have increased exponentially. It is this elite one percent --and
only this elite-- who benefit from U.S. wars of aggression in the middle east. It is
only this elite one percent who benefited from Reagan/Bush tax cuts and largesse. It is
only this elite one percent who benefited from whopping tax cuts beginning with the Reagan tax cut of 1982. Class warfare? You betcha!
In the meantime, GOP types demagogue another issue: Immigration. Disingenuously, it is claimed that immigrants will steal American jobs. That might be possible, even credible were there still American jobs to steal! Check the CIA's World Fact Book again. Pop quiz time: what does the U.S. produce and export? Where is the great American steal industry? What happened to the great American automotive industry? Where are jobs that may be stolen?
The GOP exported your job, primarily to China, the biggest beneficiary. And what about IT? Those jobs went to India! Well, you may say, there is always 'tele-marketing'! Sorry --even telemarketing has been exported! To India!
Again --check the CIA's World Fact Book, previously cited, is the proof and result of that fact! The US trails the rest of the world in almost every industrial category
. Steel and electronics were exported during the Reagan years. Automobile manufacturing left Detroit shortly afterward. Chrysler was in trouble in the 70s. It was never coincidental that US industry seemed to have vanished at about the same time Ronald Reagan waged war against labor and won! Uncle Hitler could not have done a better job.
According to the
CIA's The World Factbook - Current Account Balance our jobs have been exported to China which is listed as having the world's largest positive current account balance. Simply, that represents the transfer of US wealth to China, primarily by way of Wal-Mart, the economic Kudzu that
ate the US economy.
Democrats have occupied the executive but eight of the last thirty years. The GOP, therefore,
owns the decline and fall of both the American republic and its short lived empire. GOP policies are the cause of the collapse made even worse by the calamitous and lost war of aggression in Iraq. Aggravating the crash are the lasting legacy and the bone-headed policies of Reagan, Bush, and Shrub!
We are living the consequences of several major, pernicious trends that began with the inauguration of Ronald Reagan:
- the rich began to get much, much richer and the poor much, much poorer
- the labor movement was subverted and all but destroyed;
- within but a few years the US would 'boast' of the world's largest negative 'current account balance';
- US industries of all types declined or disappeared entirely;
- acts of terrorism against US interests increased.
Americans are harmed from the rise of leeches like Wal-Mart:
- Despite bringing in over $378 billion last year, Wal-Mart repeatedly underpays its American workforce. More than 80 wage & hour lawsuits, including a recently certified class action lawsuit in California, are currently pending against the company. Plus, it faces more than 200 discrimination lawsuits for unfair promotion practices, pay discrepancies and other issues, including the nation’s largest workplace gender discrimination lawsuit. By failing to fairly compensate its employees, Wal-Mart cheats states out of income tax revenues.
- Wal-Mart’s low wages means store employees have little or no disposable income to spend to stimulate the economy. Think about what even a small raise for Wal-Mart’s 1 million+ workers would mean nationally, or what it would mean to your city or town if everyone at your local Wal-Mart got a raise.
- Wal-Mart sources the vast majority of its products from countries overseas, meaning most of the cost of a given Wal-Mart product doesn’t go into the U.S. economy. Rather than boosting the U.S. economy, Wal-Mart has played a major role in exporting U.S. manufacturing jobs to countries with low labor and environmental standards. Meanwhile, the company has embraced unions in its Chinese stores and has negotiated with them to raise Chinese salaries. Apparently, what is good enough for China is not good enough here at home.
- Wal-Mart underfunds its health care plan and cuts corners whenever possible, forcing many of its employees to postpone care, thus decreasing their productivity and increasing the eventual cost of their treatment. In desperation, many of them rely on state-sponsored care and drain yet more funds from American communities. That means when Wal-Mart employees end up in emergency rooms, it’s U.S. taxpayers who end up footing the bill. If Wal-Mart were truly interested in stimulating the economy, it would begin to adequately fund its health care plan and take care of its own Associates.
- Wal-Mart routinely dodges state and local taxes, meaning money spent at a Wal-Mart store won’t end up in your community. Wal-Mart actively works to challenge property tax assessments and creates complex real estate arrangements to obscure how much taxes the company owes. When Wal-Mart dodges its tax burden, it takes precious revenues away from cities and states to pay for roads, schools and other services. In turn, individual taxpayers are forced to pay more to make up the difference (which takes more money out of their pockets) or get by with less.
--The Huffington Post, Why Wal-Mart Does Not Strengthen Our Economy
Money spent at Wal-Mart winds up in China! Monies thrown at the ruling elite who don't need a 'bailout' winds up in offshore accounts and the purchase of merchandise not produced in the United States. $billions$ are thus exported to be forever lost to the US economy, a loss no less important than $billions$ that are unfortunately spent at Wal-Mart.
How the War on Iraq Continues to Depress the US Economy
It is naively suggested that the 'defense industry'--the MIC --creates jobs and stimulates the economy. In fact, the US is left with a morally moribund economy built up around a handful of robber baron corporations like Halliburton, it's subsidiary KBR and, of course, Murder Inc
., otherwise called Blackwater USA.
What industries are left to America?
Answer: industrialized death and destruction! If you wish to build an entire economy upon death itself,
wars of naked aggression, war crimes and outright murder, then this is definitely the way to go. But it is not a recipe upon which a viable, growing economy is based. It is not a recipe upon which a moral society is built! It is not a recipe with which a nation's future is secured, it's people productively employed or even made safe!
There is a choice to be made between 'gun's and 'butter'. Hitler tried it, invading Poland for the coal and prospects for coal
liquifaction. As Bushco implied that all Arabs were 'terrorists', he forgot to mention
his own business partners --Bin Laden (yep! the Cave Dweller) himself and Khalid bin Mahfouz who built a huge billion dollar plus mansion in River Oaks, a very, very posh neighborhood very near downtown Houston. Bush didn't have any problems with 'Arabs' when he was in 'bidness' with them. [pumping oil and pumping ho's] The original source for all that is the Houston Chronicle which published a series of exposes in the early 90s. Too bad, no one bothered to read them.
For additional info, I suggest the following links:
Why the GOP Nurtures Lies and Myths about Ronald Reagan Why Tax Cuts and Ruinous War Make this Crisis Worse Than the 'Great Depression'How the U.S. went from 'World's Number One Exporter of Terrorism' to Bankrupt
An excerpt:
Official US Army documents detail the extent to which the US has become addicted to the export of death and destruction. According to that [US Army] document, the US leads the world in the manufacture, sale and distribution of WMD, the use of 'terrorist' tactics and PSYOPS, and overt acts of aggression that when done by smaller nations are called 'terrorism'. ...
How Much Was Fox Paid to Shill Bush's War Crime in Iraq?
How K Street Pimps America Wall Street Pulls Off the Biggest Heist in World History
An excerpt:
US Taxpayers have underwritten and/or are committed to a transfer of some 8.6 trillion dollars to Wall Street [see:
8.6 Trillion was a Drop in the Bucket]. As no 'bailout' has yet done anything but enrich Wall Street 'robber barons' who have invested their windfalls offshore, I propose that Wall Street get no more bailout monies whatsoever. I propose that the government divide up that 8.6 trillion up among all the citizens of the United States. Your share is over twenty-eight thousand dollars. I will take my share now, thank you!
If this kind of bailout were put into the hands of the folk who really drive the economy with their purchases of homes, cars, meals and clothing, the economy would literally turn around overnight. During the Great Depression, John Maynard Keynes proposed that the government would do much, much worse than simply putting 'pound notes' in Mason jars, burying them in a landfill and letting people dig them up. Keynes was not kidding. Clearly, his proposals would have worked while every cockamamie GOP plan since Ronald Reagan's depression of some two years following his tax cut of 1982 has failed. [and failed miserably!]
What Happens When Your Paycheck Comes from China Why this Crisis May be Worse than the Great Depression
Some excerpts:
About one percent of the nation owning more than about 90 percent of the rest of us combined not only foresaw the impending crash but planned to benefit from it. GOP types have traditionally gotten rich by playing 'last man out loses'! A race to be first to 'get out' has triggered many a panic creating bargains to be picked up, fortunes to be made on the inevitable upside. The big difference now is that --this time --there may not be an upside.
...
GOP 'trickle down' policies have had the measurable effect of enriching just one percent of the nation's population. [sources: Bureau of Labor Stats, US Dept of Commerce-BEA, Census Bureau] When the GOP has been caught holding the blood-dripping dagger over the corpse I am in no mood to listen to crap like:
'but Democrats are 'bad' too!' Not this time!
Democrats were in office but eight years out of thirty! But in those short eight years the trend in which wealth flows upward was --in fact --reversed only to be
undone by Bush Jr. Monies/Capital/Wealth 'trickling up' to just one percent of the population is forever lost to the US economy because it is, most often, squirreled away in offshore tax havens. Wealth thus lost results in 'contraction' of the economy, in other words, recession/depression.
NO GOP TAX CUT HAS EVER CREATED A SINGLE JOB EVER! [Read anything by John Maynard Keynes]
...
It was not so long ago that a Democratic president had left to his incompetent GOP successor a whopping budget surplus, a growing economy, the lowest unemployment in decades, and --for Republicans --the most worrisome trend of all:
the rich were no longer getting richer as they had done during the Reagan/Bush years. I can think of only one group of people who are most miserable when times are good! REPUBLICANS!
Historically, Republicans have always benefited from recessions. - Recessions are not caused by declining stock markets but seem always to be accompanied by them and are often predicted by them. Republicans play the game of 'last man out wind', taking their profits in numbers that often cause the panic. Only insiders benefit. Others are forced to take their losses.
- A depressed market becomes an opportunity for the elite oligarchs to get back in. This elite, in fact, controls the market. Everyone else is exploited by the oligarchs.
- It is easy to make money 'selling short' if you have an insider's knowledge of the market. That fortunes were made short-selling subsequent to the 911 attacks seems to me persuasive, perhaps conclusive evidence that 911 was an inside job. What was known by whom and when? No wonder Bush covered up 911. The answer to those questions would have exposed a murderous conspiracy, perhaps 'insiders' inside Bush's criminal and treasonous administration.
- Unemployment always rises during times of recession. Should they survive, companies will hire from a larger labor pool at lower wages, lower salaries, reduced benefits, and less vacation or sick time. The GOP despises the Clinton years --not because they were bad but because they were good years and fondly remembered. Europe after the Black Death has that much in common with the Clinton years. The labor supply had been depleted by plague. A would-be employer often had to accede to a worker's demands--better working conditions, more money, a place to live! The serfs had been freed and it was the beginning of the end for Feudalism. I had hoped that a less traumatic cataclysm would have already freed modern day "corporate serfs." Alas! My hopes are dashed. If the US survives at all, you can rest assured that the ruling elite will hire from an impoverished and growing labor pool. Wages and salaries are sure to be inadequate and, as a result, the 'recovery' (should there be one) will be slower for it.
- Only the oligarchs benefit when many businesses go out of business during depressions which have the effect of 'weeding out' the competition, consolidating oligarchical gains. A conservative, therefore, is someone who supports a free market when it benefits him and the oligarchy at every other time.
- Recessions are not always accompanied by a decline in prices. As many businesses fail, competition is decreased and higher prices result. Given the demand for a particular product, a company may actually earn more money selling fewer units. The difference comes out of your ass. Such demand is called: inelastic, i.e. revenues increase as prices increase --even if total sales should fall.
Unless someone blows the whistle or exercises some clout, the increasingly tiny elite of just one percent of the US population will be even richer at the end of this ruinous and tragic financial collapse. You can be sure the oligarchs foresaw the collapse and hastened it. You can be sure that they alone have and will continue to benefit from it as they have benefited from every other such crisis in US history.
Depressions are defined by a 'contraction' of the supply of money. If so, where has all the money gone?. As point out, much if not most has been squirreled away in offshore bank accounts in anticipation of a domestic collapse. But much of that money didn't really exist. It was just paper. It became fashionable to consider 'debt' as money. But debt is not money and never was. Anyone who has ever considered the significance of the accounting equation --capital equals assets minus
liabilities knows the truth of it. Nor is 'debt' money for those holding the paper. Loans are good only when backed up by collateral or, in some cases, one's earnings i.e, his/her ability to re-pay. As in all crashes, a 'bill' has come due but cannot be paid.
by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy
