Why Rick Perry Would Put the World on a Fast Track to Total Meltdown

By Tara Lohan, AlterNet

Editor’s Note:  Despite the despicable “anti-qualifications” Perry brings to the table, the ultimate product of an abject system, many of us refuse to be stampeded again into a Lesser Evil position of support for the criminal Barack Obama in 2012. A tactical “sitting out” of the next presidential contest is a long overdue stance for people serious about social change. The rigged game between the so-called “two parties” that supposedly encompass all valid political opinion in America must not be legitimized once again. —Eds

Burned trees, charred wildlife, destroyed homes — Texas has endured more than 16,000 wildfiressince January, which have consumed over 3 million acres of land. With little rain, the state has become a tinderbox. Bloomberg reports that drought in Texas has resulted in $5.2 billion of agricultural losses … and still counting. The state climatologist pegged the drought as the “worst single-year dry spell in 116 years,” according to the San Antonio Express-News. The town of Robert Lee in West Texas has seen its water supply dwindle to 1 percent and West Kemp is out of water.

Texas Governor Rick Perry, the new darling of the GOP presidential field, leapt to action. His response to catastrophe? 

I, RICK PERRY, Governor of Texas, under the authority vested in me by the Constitution and Statutes of the State of Texas, do hereby proclaim the three-day period from Friday, April 22, 2011, to Sunday, April 24, 2011, as Days of Prayer for Rain in the State of Texas. I urge Texans of all faiths and traditions to offer prayers on those days for the healing of our land, the rebuilding of our communities and the restoration of our normal way of life.

All the praying didn’t pay off. The federal government has been forced to declare 213 counties in Texas natural disaster areas, and the drought has already resulted in fish kills and will likely cause anecosystem-wide ripple of destruction for years to come, affecting everything from plants to top predators, and insects to migrating birds. Ranchers are selling off their herds, residents are using water for the bare minimums of drinking, cooking and cleaning. Towns are trying to drill emergency wells or run pipes to tap neighboring towns that have more water left. Other communities are making plans to truck in bottled water or drink treated wastewater.

In times like these, everyone is feeling the pinch. Well, almost everyone. It seems that the oil and gas industry is doing OK in Texas. No bigger shocker there. Although what may be surprising is how much water is used extracting these fossil fuels, especially when the practice of hydraulic fracturing is used. Fracking, as it is more commonly known, involves ejecting water, sand and chemicals underground with high pressure to access oil or gas that may be in pockets of rock. The American Independent reports:

A report released in July by the Texas Water Development Board estimated that industry uses about 12 billion gallons of water annually for hydrofracking in Texas now, but that demand will grow to 39.1 billion gallons before 2030. … 

Slate Williams, general manager of the Crockett Groundwater Conservation District in West Texas, told a Scripps Howard News Service reporter in June that there just isn’t enough water to go around. “I want them to quit using fresh water for fracking,” he said.

Unfortunately for Williams and so many others in parched Texas there is little hope that Perry will do anything to impede the oil and gas industry. Perry even recently told Iowans they were missing out on fracking and said, “Not one time that I’m aware of has hydraulic fracking impacted groundwater,” ignoring the fact that there are over 1,000 documented cases of groundwater contamination from fracking, included EPA studies dating back to 1987.

Of course, why would Perry bite the hand that feeds him? The governor has raked in over $11 millionfrom the industry, which is why it is no surprise that his response to unprecedented drought and warming in his home state would spur a response like, “We’ll be fine. As my dad says, ‘it’ll rain. It always does.'”

Quien es más scumbag? A difficult question given the utterly repulsive contenders, flamboyant rocker and bowhunter Ted Nugent and Perry. We'd like to think it can't get worse than that, but in this country it probably does.

While of course, it will rain at some point that doesn’t get Texas out of hot water. The longterm prognosis for Texas is hotter and drier, thanks to guess what? Yeah, climate change. Perry has dismissed climate change as just another excuse for scientists to rake in the bucks, because you know what they say about climatologists just being in it for the money. If Perry admitted that global warming was a problem, then he’d have to admit that the oil and gas industry has a big part to play in that. Texas leads the nation in greenhouse gas emissions. 

If you’re a Tea Party right-winger, you’re apparently suppose to deny science at all cost. As Perry said, “I don’t think, from my perspective, that I want America to be engaged in spending that much money still on a scientific theory that has not been proven, and from my perspective, is being put more and more into question.” 

Hasn’t been proven? More and more in question? That is just flat out false — unless Perry knows something that just about all of the world’s leading scientists and scientific organizations don’t. A study published in 2010 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found the consensus overwhelming:

We use an extensive dataset of 1,372 climate researchers and their publication and citation data to show that 97–98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field support the tenets of ACC [anthropogenic climate change] outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and the relative climate expertise and scientific prominence of the researchers unconvinced of ACC are substantially below that of the convinced researchers.

So, over 97 percent are in agreement and they are also the most expert and prominent in the field. Theorganizations that stand behind the science are the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, U.S. National Academy of Sciences, American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Chemical Society, the American Geophysical Union, American Meteorological Society, American Physical Society, Geological Society of America, and the list goes on.

Perry is either not smart enough to understand the science or he is willing to blow off the largest environmental and human health catastrophe for political posturing. 

His stance on global warming though is fitting with his overall environmental record. He called BP’s disaster in the Gulf an “act of God,” and has shunned any attempt to try and prevent another catastrophe. ABC News reported that Perry “lamented the lack of drilling in the Gulf Of Mexico, saying that the government should not put drilling there on hold ‘because of one event — the Deepwater Horizon event.’” 

I guess even if that “one event” is the country’s largest environmental disaster, it doesn’t qualify for a little more oversight of industry. Perry, it turns out, would actually like zero oversight of, well, everything. Shortly after announcing his bid for the presidency, he said, “We’re calling today on the president of the United States to put a moratorium on regulations across this country.”

As Brad Johnson at Think Progress noted, this is essentially akin to total anarchy. He writes

Under such a moratorium, the Food and Drug Administration would stop approving new drugs and preventing human experimentation; the USDA would stop checking for food safety; the EPA would stop monitoring for poisons in drinking water; the Library of Congress would stop loaning materials to blind people; the NTSB would stop investigating airplane accidents; HHS would end Medicare payments; no more patents, copyrights, or trademarks would be issued; DHS would stop protecting chemical facilities from terrorist attacks; the Treasury would stop printing currency; financial sanctions on hostile nations like North Korea and Iran would end; and the Federal Reserve System would shut down. Perry’s “moratorium on regulations” would mean a literal end to the rules of law in the United States.

It doesn’t end there. Perry has also worked to fast-track 11 dirty coal plants, has skewed transportation money to roads instead of mass transit, and has been suing the EPA over the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions. The Texas League of Conservation Voters named Perry to its Dirty Dozen list, saying, “Rick Perry is one of 12 candidates for state office from around the country named to the list for his consistent stances against clean energy politics and conservation initiatives.” TLCV reported that in 2009 he “vetoed a bill passed by a Republican-controlled Legislature that would have required television manufacturers to recycle their product, keeping toxic heavy metals from reaching Texas landfills.” And in 2010:

Perry’s Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) dragged its feet on shuttering the highly polluting Asarco smelter in El Paso, and is green-lighting a toxic-waste dump near Odessa over the objections and resignation of agency staff. 

Perry and his appointed commissioners at TCEQ have waged a legal and political war against the federal Environmental Protection Agency because it is finally requiring polluters in Texas to follow the same laws that all other 49 states are following. 

Has he done anything green? Yes. Perry has helped solidify Texas as a leader in wind energy, and has also required that fracking companies disclose their toxic recipe of chemicals they pump underground (although apparently that is not because he’s worried these chemicals will actually contaminate groundwater). Both of these are great, but pale in comparison to the rest of his environmental record. David Jenkins, government affairs director at Republicans for Environmental Protection, told theUnion Leader, “Based on his crusade against the EPA and air quality measures and so forth as governor of Texas, it’s kind of hard to think he’d be someone who is in sync with our idea of conservation and environmental stewardship.”

Probably the most disturbing thing on Perry’s anti-environmental resume, is this tidbit from the Union Leader:

Marc Morano, a former Sen. Jim Inhofe aide who now runs the ClimateDepot skeptic blog, called Perry the “complete package when it comes to energy and environmental issues.”

If someone gets a blessing from Swift Boater and Rush Limbaugh show producer/reporter Morano, you can guarantee that is a person you wouldn’t want to be put in charge of making sure you have clean air to breathe, clean water to drink, and a planet that isn’t on the fast track to total meltdown. 

Tara Lohan is a senior editor at AlterNet and editor of the new book Water Matters: Why We Need to Act Now to Save Our Most Critical Resource. You can follow her on Twitter @TaraLohan.

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AmpedStatus Report >> Analysis of Financial Terrorism in America

Analysis of Financial Terrorism in America: Over 1 Million Deaths Annually, 62 Million People With Zero Net Worth, As the Economic Elite Make Off With $46 Trillion

Hank Paulson: a notable alum of Goldman Sachs, and a hero to the oligarchy.

Editor’s Note: The following report includes adapted excerpts from David DeGraw’s book, “The Road Through 2012: Revolution or World War III.” Release Date: 9.28.11

Analysis of Financial Terrorism in America
By David DeGraw, AmpedStatus Report

Abstract :: Welcome to World War III [3]
Introduction [4]

Part One :: The Economic Devastation

I :: Poverty [5]
II :: Food Insecurity [6]
III :: Unemployment [7]
IV :: Declining Income [8]

Part Two :: The Economic Elite

V :: How Much Wealth Do The Economic Elite Have? [9]
VI :: Who Rules America? Revealing The Economic Top 0.1% [10]
VII :: Tax Breaks For The Rich, Budget Cuts For The Rest Of Us [11]

Part Three :: The Perfect Storm Overhead
(Inequality = Debt = Austerity = Civil Unrest = Inflation + Deflation = Stagflation)

VIII :: Debt Slavery [12]
IX :: Inflation [13]
X :: The Beaten Masses [14]

Part Four :: Fascism in America

XI :: Modern Day Slavery [15]
XII :: The Death Toll [16]
XIII :: Deliberate Systemic Attacks [17]

Abstract :: Welcome to World War III

Despite increasing personal financial hardship, most Americans remain unaware of the economic world war currently unfolding. An all-pervasive corporate and government propaganda campaign has effectively obscured this blatant reality. After extensive analysis, it is evident that World War III is a war between the richest one-tenth of one percent of the global population and 99.9 percent of humanity. Or, as I have called it, The Economic Elite Vs. The People [18]. This war has been a one-sided attack thus far. However, as we have seen throughout the world in recent months, the people are beginning to fight back. The following report is a statistical analysis of the systemic economic attacks against the American people.

Introduction

The American public has sustained intensive economic attacks across broad segments of the population. While the attacks have been increasingly severe in scale over the past four years, they have been implemented with technocratic precision. They have been incrementally applied thus far, successfully keeping the population passive and avoiding any large-scale civilian unrest, while effectively reducing living standards for the majority of the population. As you will see in this report, the 55 million Americans that have been hit the hardest have thus far acquiesced due to temporary financial assistance, such as food stamps and extended unemployment benefits.

The global Economic Elite have been much more strategic in handling the American public, as they are potentially the greatest threat to their continued consolidation of wealth, resources and power. National populations that are not as powerful, and on the periphery of the Economic Elite’s global empire, have been dealt with in much harsher fashion. In many smaller and less powerful countries the dramatic rise in food prices and costs of living have led to all-out revolt — Tunisia, Algeria, Albania and Egypt were among the first to rebel. While the contagion of rebellion has rapidly spread throughout Northern Africa and the Middle East, it is also spreading in a decentralized manner throughout most of the world, now threatening popular rebellion throughout Europe. Like the US population, the geographically clustered European nations represent a potentially powerful countervailing force to the Economic Elite’s continued domination.

Within the United States, the technocratic suppression of the population has been extensive. Increasingly severe economic and governmental policies have systematically eroded civilian wealth, power and rights. Intensive propaganda has effectively distracted, confused, isolated, marginalized and divided the US population. Despite the success of these efforts thus far, given the severe, prolonged, unsustainable and escalating level of economic suffering, outbreaks of civil unrest are inevitable. The US population, if a critical mass is reached, represents the greatest threat to the Economic Elite. In this regard, the American people are their primary adversary.

In writing this report, I will clearly demonstrate the severity and scale of the deliberate systemic economic attacks against the US population, in hope that we can urgently build a critical mass of aware and engaged citizens.

Part One :: The Economic Devastation

Snapshot: According to most recent Census Bureau data, from 2005 – 2009, average US household wealth declined by 28% [19]. This represents a loss of $27,000 per household. Currently, at least 62 million Americans, 20% [19] of US households, have zero or negative net worth.

The Census figures cited above are based on statistics that have been consistently proven to be lowball estimates. The government and corporate media spread propaganda on vital economic statistics that mask the severity of our economic crisis. Deceptive inflation, unemployment, poverty and GDP measures, which cast the illusion of recovery, are easily exposed with some research and a closer look at the data. Throughout this report, we will explore significant examples of government economic propaganda. In several cases, the government has been forced to revise their numbers due to proven inaccuracies. The government’s “revisions” are most always for the worse, and are usually just a footnote correction that the public is rarely ever aware of. All that being said, for many statistics we are forced to use government data, as there are not any other extensive data sets available from alternative sources.

I :: Record Breaking Poverty

The Census Bureau poverty rate is a horribly flawed measurement that uses outdated methodology. The Census measures poverty based on costs of living metrics established in 1955 – 56 years ago. They ignore many key factors, such as the increased costs of medical care, child care, education, transportation, and many other basic costs. They also don’t factor geographically-based costs of living. The National Academy of Science measure, which gets little if any corporate media coverage, gives a much more accurate account of poverty, as they factor in these vital cost of living variables.

The most current Census data revealed that 43.6 million Americans, 14.3% of the population, lived in poverty in 2009. While that is a staggering number that represents the highest number of American people to ever live in poverty, and a dramatic increase of four million people since 2008, it significantly under-counted the total. Last year, in my analysis [20], extrapolating data from 2008 National Academy of Science findings, I estimated that the number of Americans living in poverty in 2009 was at least 52 million [20]. Recently, the National Academy of Science released their latest findings, backing up my claim by revealing that 52,765,000 [21] Americans, 17.3% of the population, lived in poverty in 2009.

The poverty rate for children is even worse. According to Census data, a total of 15.5 million [22] American children lived in poverty in 2009, which is 20% of all children. The number of children in poverty increased 28% since 2000, and jumped 10% from 2008 to 2009. Extrapolating data from the 2009 National Academy of Science poverty rate, in relation to the Census childhood poverty data, the number of American children living in poverty in 2009 is more accurately 18.8 million, which is 24%, or nearly one in four.

Other than this rapidly increasing number children who are in families that have recently fallen into poverty, “every day in America 2,573 babies [22] are born into poverty.”

As the chart to the right shows, even with the lower Census numbers, nine major American cities have a poverty rate over 25%.

It is important to note, based on many key indicators, as you will see throughout this report, the overall poverty totals have increased since 2009. Also consider that the recent deficit reduction plan is going to cut “anti-poverty” programs that currently assist tens of millions of Americans. A study by the National Bureau of Economic Research estimates that “the poverty rate would double [23] without these programs.” It is predicted that the new deficit deal will cut the funding for these programs in half [24], which, based on these estimates, would bring the total number of Americans living in poverty up to 80 million people, 26% of the population.

II :: Record Breaking Food Insecurity

For another revealing statistic, which has been quickly increasing, we can look at the number of Americans currently surviving off of food stamps. In 2005, 25.7 million [25] Americans needed food stamps, currently 45.8 million people [26] rely on them. As the chart to the right shows, the number of people in need of food stamps has been rapidly increasing year-over-year.

Meanwhile, Congress is cutting the funding [27] for the food stamp program at a time when the Department of Agriculture estimates that an additional 22.5 million [28] people will need them, bringing the total number of Americans in need of food assistance to a stunning 68.3 million people.

III :: Record Breaking Unemployment

While the “official” unemployment rate hovers around 9%, 14 million people, the government’s numbers are deceptively low once again. The only reason unemployment has stayed below 10% for the past few months is because millions of long-term unemployed, and part-time workers who are looking for full-time work, are not included in the baseline government unemployment rate. John Williams, from ShadowStats.com [29], has a consistently proven method of tracking unemployment that provides a much more accurate view of the overall situation. As shocking as it may sound, when you apply his SGS method, counting the total number people in need of employment, you get a current unemployment rate of 22.5%, which is an all-time record total of 34 million people currently in need of work. Here is how the SGS rate is calculated:

“The seasonally-adjusted SGS Alternate Unemployment Rate reflects current unemployment reporting methodology adjusted for SGS-estimated long-term discouraged workers, who were defined out of official existence in 1994. That estimate is added to the BLS estimate of U-6 unemployment, which includes short-term discouraged workers.

The U-3 unemployment rate is the monthly headline number. The U-6 unemployment rate is the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) broadest unemployment measure, including short-term discouraged and other marginally-attached workers as well as those forced to work part-time because they cannot find full-time employment.”

On top of these shocking figures, the labor force participation rate, which measures the percentage of the total population currently working, has fallen to a 27-year low of 63.9%.

Currently, an all-time record 6.3 million [30] people have been unemployed for over six months. As the chart to the right shows, the average time it takes for a person to find a job has also just hit an all-time high of 40.4 weeks [31].

As companies continue to downsize and shift jobs overseas, unemployment is once again accelerating. Private-sector job cuts in July surged 60% to a 16-month high [32]. When accounting for population growth within the total labor force, from December 2007 to present, we have lost 10.6 million [33] jobs.

With the implementation of state and federal budget cuts, public-sector unemployment is accelerating as well. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, since August 2008, state and local governments have cut 577,000 [34] jobs. The Economic Policy Institute estimates that cuts in the new deficit deal will lead to an additional 1.8 million [24] job losses.

Of the new jobs that have been added in 2010, 60% [35] of them are in low-wage fields. Since December 2007, the official unemployment rate has masked the fact that 2.8 million [35] of the news jobs created have been part-time jobs.

Breaking down the data, over the last 12 months [36], the National Employment Law Project found that well-paying jobs are rapidly decreasing, while low-paying jobs are helping to mask an increasingly dire employment crisis:

· Lower-wage industries constituted 23% of job loss, but fully 49% of recent growth
· Mid-wage industries constituted 36% of job loss, and 37% of recent growth
· Higher-wage industries constituted 40% of job loss, but only 14% of recent growth

IV :: Declining Income

While the cost of living from 1990 – 2010 increased by 67%, worker income has declined. According to the most recent available IRS data, covering the year of 2009, average income fell 6.1%, a loss of $3,516 per worker, that year alone. Average income has declined 13.7% from 2007 – 2009, representing a $8,588 [37] loss per worker.

The decline in worker income is due to the dramatic increase in CEO pay. CEO pay has consistently increased year-over-year since the mid-1970s. From 1975 – 2010, worker productivity increased 80%. Over this time frame, CEO pay and the income of the economic top 0.1% (one-tenth of one percent) of the population quadrupled [38]. The income of the top 0.01% (one-hundredth of one percent) quintupled [38].

To understand the affect CEO pay increases have had on workers’ declining share of income on an annual basis, after analyzing 2008 tax data, leading tax reporter David Cay Johnston summed up [39] the situation with these revealing statistics:

“Had income growth from 1950 to 1980 continued at the same rate for the next 28 years, the average income of the bottom 90 percent in 2008 would have been 68 percent higher…. That would have meant an average income for the vast majority of $52,051, or $21,110 more than actual 2008 incomes. How different America would be today if the typical family had $406 more each week…”

As shocking as that is, over the last two years, workers have lost an even higher share of income to CEOs. In the last year alone, CEO pay skyrocketed by 28% [40]. Looking at 2009, according to a recent Dollars & Sense report [41], workers lost nearly $2 trillion in wages that year alone:

“In 2009, stock owners, bankers, brokers, hedge-fund wizards, highly paid corporate executives, corporations, and mid-ranking managers pocketed—as either income, benefits, or perks such as corporate jets—an estimated $1.91 trillion that 40 years ago would have collectively gone to non-supervisory and production workers in the form of higher wages and benefits.”

As bad as these numbers are, consider that the attack on American workers has increased significantly since 2009. From 2009 to the fourth-quarter of 2010, 88% of income growth [42] went to corporate profits (i.e. CEOs), while just 1% went to workers.

As the NY Times reported in an article entitled, “Our Banana Republic,” from 1980 – 2005, “more than four-fifths of the total increase in American incomes went to the richest 1 percent.” Again, as bad as that was, since 2005 it has gotten even worse, as Zero Hedge recently reported [43], labor’s current “share of national income has fallen to its lowest level in modern history.” This chart shows how workers’ percentage of income has been rapidly declining:

The bottom line, as statistics clearly demonstrate, these trends are getting worse and the attacks against us, as severe as they have been over the past four years, are dramatically escalating.

Part Two :: The Economic Elite

“There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class,
the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”
– Warren Buffett, Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway

V :: How Much Wealth Do The Economic Elite Have?

While 68.3 million Americans struggle to get enough food to eat and wages are declining for 90% of the population, US millionaire household wealth has reached an unprecedented level. According to an extensive study by auditing and financial advisory firm Deloitte, US millionaire households now have $38.6 trillion [44] in wealth. On top of the $38.6 trillion that this study reveals, they have an estimated $6.3 trillion [45] hidden in offshore accounts.

In total, US millionaire households have at least $45.9 trillion in wealth, the majority of this wealth is held within the upper one-tenth of one percent of the population.

If all this isn’t obscene enough, to further demonstrate how the global economy has now been completely rigged, Deloitte’s analysis predicated, based on current trends, that US millionaire households will see a 225% increase in wealth to $87.1 trillion by 2020. Accounting for wealth hidden in offshore accounts, they are projected to have over $100 trillion in total within the next decade.

Most people cannot even comprehend how much $1 trillion is, let alone $46 trillion. One trillion is equal to 1000 billion, or $1,000,000,000,000 [46]. To put it in perspective, last year the entire cost of feeding all 40 million Americans on food stamps was $65 billion [28].

Now consider, according to the latest IRS data, only 0.076% of the population, less than one-tenth of one percent, earned over $1 million [37] in 2009.

The graph below, based on data from the Tax Policy Center, shows how much income is earned by a household at any given percentile in income distribution:

 

The highest bracket for annual income is $50 million or more. Only 74 Americans are in this elite group. The average income within this category was $91.2 million [39] in 2008. As astonishing as that is, in 2009 they averaged $518.8 million [39] each, or about $10 million per week. This means, in the depths of the recession, the richest 74 Americans increased their income by more than 5 times within this one year. These 74 people made more money than 19 million [39] workers combined.

In context, overall, the richest 400 people [47] in the US have as much wealth as 154 million Americans combined, that’s 50% of the entire country. The top economic 1% of the US population now has a record 40% of all wealth [48], and have more wealth than 90% [49] of the population combined.

VI :: Who Rules America? Revealing The Economic Top 0.1%

Here is an analysis [50] from an investment manager with mega-wealthy clients breaking down the economic top 0.5% of the population, recently published by William Domhoff, sociology professor and author of Who Rules America? [51]:

“Unlike those in the lower half of the top 1%, those in the top half and, particularly, top 0.1%, can often borrow for almost nothing, keep profits and production overseas, hold personal assets in tax havens, ride out down markets and economies, and influence legislation in the US. They have access to the very best in accounting firms, tax and other attorneys, numerous consultants, private wealth managers, a network of other wealthy and powerful friends, lucrative business opportunities, and many other benefits.

Folks in the top 0.1% come from many backgrounds but it’s infrequent to meet one whose wealth wasn’t acquired through direct or indirect participation in the financial and banking industries…. Most of the serious economic damage the US is struggling with today was done by the top 0.1% and they benefited greatly from it…. For example, in Q1 of 2011, America’s top corporations reported 31% profit growth and a 31% reduction in taxes, the latter due to profit outsourcing to low tax rate countries…. The year 2010 was a record year for compensation on Wall Street, while corporate CEO compensation rose by over 30%.…

In 2010 a dozen major companies, including GE, Verizon, Boeing, Wells Fargo, and Fed Ex paid US tax rates between -0.7% and -9.2%. Production, employment, profits, and taxes have all been outsourced….

I could go on and on, but the bottom line is this: A highly complex and largely discrete set of laws and exemptions from laws has been put in place by those in the uppermost reaches of the US financial system. It allows them to protect and increase their wealth and significantly affect the US political and legislative processes.

They have real power and real wealth. Ordinary citizens in the bottom 99.9% are largely not aware of these systems, do not understand how they work, are unlikely to participate in them, and have little likelihood of entering the top 0.5%, much less the top 0.1%….

… the American dream of striking it rich is merely a well-marketed fantasy that keeps the bottom 99.5% hoping for better and prevents social and political instability. The odds of getting into that top 0.5% are very slim and the door is kept firmly shut by those within it.”

To get into the top economic 0.01% (one-hundredth of one percent) of the population, you have to have a household income of over $27 million [52] per year.

If you look at some of the central players who caused this economic crisis, you will see that they are among this Economic Elite group.

Paulson—is that a Nuremberg Financial Crimes Tribunal?

Former Goldman Sachs CEO and Bush Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson had already amassed at least $700 million prior to moving to the US Treasury in 2006. Current Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein and a few other top executives at Goldman Sachs just received $111.3 million in bonuses. Blankfein just took home $24.3 million, as part of a $67.9 million bonus he was awarded.  Goldman’s President Gary Cohn took home $24 million, as part of a $66.9 million bonus he was awarded. Goldman’s CFO David Viniar and former co-president Jon Winkelried both took home over $20 million in bonuses.

Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit just took home $80 million, in what may eventually total more than $200 million in compensation and bonuses. Coming in at the top of the list is JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, who just took home $90 million.

If you think people in this income level don’t control the US political process, you are not paying attention. After they caused this economic crisis, they got the government to give them trillions of dollars in taxpayer support, and then, after taking our tax dollars, they gave themselves all-time record-breaking bonuses. 2009 was an all-time record-breaking year for Wall Street executives bringing in a total of $145 billion [53]. And then, in 2010, they raised the bar even higher, breaking the all-time record set the year before by pulling in another $149 billion [54]. The audacity of it all is stunning.

Finding people more grotesquely greedy than Wall Street executives would seem to be impossible. However, health insurance CEOs are giving them a run for their money. As the LA Times reported [55]:

“Leaders of Cigna, Humana, UnitedHealth, WellPoint and Aetna received nearly $200 million in compensation in 2009, according to a report, while the companies sought rate increases as high as 39%….

H. Edward Hanway, former chief executive of Philadelphia-based Cigna, topped the list of high-paid executives, thanks to a retirement package worth $110.9 million. Cigna paid Hanway and his successor, David Cordani, a total of $136.3 million last year….

Ron Williams, the CEO of Hartford, Conn.-based Aetna Inc., earned nearly $18.2 million in total compensation, down from $24.4 million in 2008.”

Aetna CEO Ron Williams has recovered from his down year in 2009 by making $72 million [56] in 2010.

Given this level of obscene profiteering within the health care industry, it is not surprising that Americans pay more for medical care than any other nation in the world. In fact, Americans are forced to pay twice as much as most nations, and get lower quality care in return. As health insurance companies admitted, they have been reaping windfall profits because people with health insurance plans still cannot afford to go to the doctors and have stopped going unless it is an absolute emergency. With well over 50 million people unable to afford health insurance and the skyrocketing costs, it is not surprising that over 60% of all personal bankruptcies are the result of medical bills. In fact, 75% of the medical bankruptcies filed are from people who have health insurance.

Within this Economic Elite group, you also have the war profiteering [57] oil companies, which themselves are in large part owned by the big Wall Street banks. The biggest five oil companies, while gas prices have been skyrocketing, reaped $36 billion [58] in profit last quarter. These companies also receive an average of $6 billion [58] per year in tax subsidies.

VII :: Tax Breaks For The Rich, Budget Cuts For The Rest Of Us

To further demonstrate how the mega-wealthy have seized control our political process, consider that the richest 400 Americans paid 30% of their income in taxes in 1995, but they now pay only 18% [59].

In fact, 1,470 Americans [60] earned over $1 million in 2009 and didn’t pay any taxes.

The average tax rate for millionaires was 22.4% in 2009, down from 30.4% in 1995. The average millionaire saves $136,000 [61] a year due to reduced tax rates.

Looking at the tax rate from a long-term perspective, the amount of money the richest people and most profitable corporations pay in taxes has fallen dramatically since 1955. Corporate tax accounted for 27.3% of federal revenue in 1955. In 2010, corporate tax accounted for only 8.9% [62] of federal revenue. Corporate taxes accounted for 4.3% of overall GDP in 1955, in 2010 they accounted for only 1.3% [62].

Part Three :: The Perfect Storm Overhead:
(Inequality = Debt = Austerity = Civil Unrest = Inflation + Deflation = Stagflation)

The cuts in taxes for the mega-wealthy have led to record wealth inequality and resulted in a record national deficit. Meanwhile, to make up for the deficit that the richest one-tenth of one percent of the population has created, Democrats and Republicans are committed to making draconian budget cuts to vital social services, which target the poor, middle class, elderly and sick, while handing out billions more in corporate welfare annually. (Inequality = Debt = Austerity)

Just as the government has done, to make up for tax revenue lost to the mega-wealthy, Americans have made up for the decline in income by taking on large amounts of debt as well. (Inequality = Debt)

In a severely unequal society, massive debt will always be created, thus forming a vicious cycle of increasing inequality and increasing debt, until the fragmentation of society reaches a breaking point when those in debt cannot afford to pay back their debts without starving to death. We are now reaching that breaking point. (Inequality = Debt = Austerity = Civil Unrest)

VIII :: Debt Slavery

The Indentured Servant Has Become The Indebted Citizen

As for statistics on Americans being buried in financial debt, the indentured servant has evolved into the indebted citizen. As mentioned before, from 1990 – 2010 costs of living have increased 67%, while wages have stagnated and declined. As the national debt has reached a record $14.6 trillion, total personal debt is now over $16 trillion [63]. Consumer debt is $2.5 trillion. Credit card debt is $805 billion and student debt now exceeds $1 trillion [64].

Obviously, the more severe your debts are, the more you have to cut back in spending and the less money you have to buy new items. (Debt = Austerity)

Meanwhile, a perfect storm circles overhead as society breaks down and falls into an economic death spiral – health care, food and gas costs are skyrocketing, while income and home values are plummeting. (Inflation + Deflation = Stagflation)

Given these conditions, it is not surprising that over 250 million Americans, another record-breaking number, are currently living paycheck-to-paycheck struggling to make ends meet.

IX :: Inflation

The following charts, from Advisor Perspectives, show the increase in costs of living since 2000:

As you can see, the price of basic necessities are consistently increasing, only clothing (apparel) has declined. The second chart highlights the crucial skyrocketing cost of energy:

The third chart highlights the pernicious skyrocketing cost of education:

The cost of education essentially buries a young person in a debt that they will spend a significant portion of their life attempting to get out of. Given the increasing costs of living, and the decreasing ability to make an expected income from such an expensive level of education, this young demographic will most likely live an entire life locked into spiraling levels of debt that they will never be able to get out of.

Propaganda Inflation

When reporting on inflation, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has twice, since 1980, revised their methodology to mask the severity of inflation, similar to how they mask the severity of unemployment. In their Consumer Price Index (CPI), which measures inflation, they have heavily discounted the measurement weight of energy, food and education – three of the most significant costs for most American households.

To understand the significance in their revised methodology, current “official” CPI is at a 3.6% annual rate. However, if calculated the way it was before former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan altered it in 1980, it would be 11.1% [65], three times worse than officially stated.

So while the government and the Federal Reserve claim that inflation is low, at 3.6% [66] over the past year, food prices have increased 39% [67] and US gas prices have increased 34% [68] over the same time frame.

The increase in gas cost over the past one-year masks the severity of total gas price inflation, which is currently 125% more [68] expensive since December 2008, increasing from $1.67 per gallon to $3.75.

The Hidden Tax

The Federal Reserve’s strategic policy known as Quantitative Easing (QE) has been a significant factor in the rising cost of basic necessities by deliberately stimulating inflation, while decreasing the value of the dollar. Looking at their recent QE2 program, the dollar lost 7.5% [69] of its value from January 2010 through March 2010. From August 2010 through March 2010, the dollar lost 17% [69] of its value. To understand how this acts as a hidden tax, consider if you had $10,000 in the bank, over this time frame you would have lost $1700 in purchasing power. So your $10,000 would now be worth $8300. At the same time, the cost of gas and food drastically increased.

The Phantom Recovery

By decreasing the value of the dollar, the Federal Reserve is also inflating the stock market by creating the impression that stock prices are rising, which, when measured in dollars, they have. However, in real terms, their overall value has decreased. To understand how deceptive this strategy has been in giving the appearance of a rising market, instead of measuring overall stock value in dollars, let’s look at their overall value when measured in terms of gold:

Dow/Gold Chart from January 1, 2003 – August 8, 2011
As investor Michael Krieger explains:

“You can see from the chart above the downtrend of stock prices in real terms is completely intact and they have now hit a new low, below the previous low point in March 2009. In fact, although stocks did temporarily rise in real terms from the low in 2009 for the year as a whole, they were still down 5% in real terms. Then last year, stocks were 14% lower in terms of gold. Finally, despite a brief rally early in 2011, stocks in terms of gold are down 23% year-to-date.”

Dollar Vs. Gold

When comparing the value of the dollar to the value of gold, the dollar has lost a stunning 84% of its value since 2000. In 2000, gold was worth $279 per ounce, as of August 8, 2011, gold is $1,725 per ounce. In fact, the dollar continues to fall in value while gold continues to rise.

Stagflation

All these factors together create a perfect storm of stagflation. As 90% of Americans experience income declines, and the value of the dollar declines, the price of necessities are rising, while the one major asset many Americans have, a house, is also declining in value. Already, thanks to declining home values, 28% of US homeowners owe more on their mortgages than their home is currently worth. With 10.4 million American families having lost their homes to foreclosure since 2007, Amherst Securities, a leading broker/dealer focused on mortgage-related investments, estimates that another 10.8 million [70] homes are at risk of default over the next six years. This will obviously continue downward pressure on home values.

X :: The Beaten Masses

Confronted With Severe Financial Hardship, Why Do Americans Remain Passive?

With an unprecedented sum of wealth, tens of trillions of dollars, held within the top one-tenth of one percent of the US population, we now have the highest and most severe inequality of wealth in US history. Not even the Robber Barons of the Gilded Age were as greedy as the modern day Economic Elite.

As famed American philosopher John Dewey once said, “There is no such thing as the liberty or effective power of an individual, group, or class, except in relation to the liberties, the effective powers, of other individuals, groups or classes.”

In The Economic Elite Vs. The People [18], I reported on the strategic withholding of wealth from 99% of the US population over the past generation. Since the mid-1970s, worker production and wealth creation has exploded. As the statistics throughout this report prove, the dramatic increase in wealth has been almost entirely absorbed by the economic top one-tenth of one percent of the population, with most of it going to the top one-hundredth of one percent.

If you are wondering why a critical mass of people desperately struggling to make ends meet are still not fighting back with overwhelming force and running the mega-wealthy aristocrats out of town, let’s consider two significant factors:

1) People are so busy trying to maintain their current standard of living that their energies are consumed by holding on to the little that they have left.

2) People have very little understanding of how much wealth has been consolidated within the top economic one-tenth of one percent.

Considering the first factor, it is obvious that people have become beaten down psychologically and financially. A report in the Guardian entitled, “Anxiety keeps the super-rich safe from middle-class rage,” suggests that people are so desperate to hold on to what they have that they are too busy looking down to look up: “As psychologists will tell you, fear of loss is more powerful than the prospect of gain. The struggling middle classes look down more anxiously than they look up, particularly in recession and sluggish recovery.”

Considering the second factor, people do not understand how much wealth has been withheld from them. The average person has never personally experienced or seen the excessive wealth and luxury that the mega-rich live in. Wealth inequality has grown so extreme and the wealthy have become so far removed from average society, it is as if the rich exist in some outer stratosphere beyond the comprehension of the average person. As the Guardian report mentioned above also states:

“… having little daily contact with the rich and little knowledge of how they lived, they simply didn’t think about inequality much, or regard the wealthy as direct competitors for resources. As the sociologist Garry Runciman observed: ‘Envy is a difficult emotion to sustain across a broad social distance.’… Even now most underestimate the rewards of bankers and executives. Top pay has reached such levels that, rather like interstellar distances, what the figures mean is hard to grasp.”

In fact, the average American vastly underestimates the severe wealth disparity that we currently have. This survey, featured in the NY Times, reveals that Americans think our society is far more equal than it actually is:

“In a recent survey of Americans, my colleague Dan Ariely and I found that Americans drastically underestimated the level of wealth inequality in the United States. While recent data indicates that the richest 20 percent of Americans own 84 percent of all wealth, people estimated that this group owned just 59 percent – believing that total wealth in this country is far more evenly divided among poorer Americans.

What’s more, when we asked them how they thought wealth should be distributed, they told us they wanted an even more equitable distribution, with the richest 20 percent owning just 32 percent of the wealth. This was true of Democrats and Republicans, rich and poor – all groups we surveyed approved of some inequality, but their ideal was far more equal than the current level.”

Here is a chart showing the results from their survey:

The fact of the matter is that the overwhelming majority of US population is unaware of the vast wealth at hand. An entire generation of unprecedented wealth creation has been concealed from 99% of the population for over 35 years. Having never personally experienced or known of this wealth, the average American cannot comprehend what is possible if even a fraction of it was used for the betterment of society as a whole.

In fact, given modern technology and wealth, not a single American citizen should live in poverty. The statistics clearly demonstrate that we now live in a Neo-Feudal society. In comparison to the wealthiest one-tenth of one percent of the population, who are sitting on top of tens of trillions of dollars in wealth, we are modern day serfs, essentially propagandized peasants.

The fact that the overwhelming majority of Americans are struggling to get by, while tens of trillions of dollars are consolidated within a small fraction of the population, is a crime against humanity.

The day the average American fully comprehends how much wealth is consolidated within just the top one-tenth of one percent of the population, there will be a massive uprising and all the paid off politicians will be run out of town.

The next time you are stressed out, struggling to make ends meet and pay off your debts, just think about the trillions of dollars sitting in the obscenely bloated pockets of one-tenth of one percent of the population. The first step in overcoming your peasant status is to understand that you are indeed a peasant. This is a bitter pill to swallow and most will prefer to, as they have been conditioned to do, continue on their path of media-induced delusion, denial, apathy and ignorance.

However, I still cling to the hope that once enough people become aware of this hidden and obscured fact, we can have the non-violent revolution we so urgently need. Until then, the rich get richer as a critical mass with increasingly dire economic prospects desperately struggles to make ends meet.

Part Four :: Fascism in America

Other than driving large segments of the American population into poverty, and pushing the majority into massive debt and a state of financial desperation, there is an ever darker side to what is unfolding today. The Economic Elite have turned America into a modern day fascist state.

Fascism is a very powerful word which evokes many strong feelings. People may think that the term cannot be applied to modern day America. However, as Benito Mussolini once summed it up: “Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power.” In the early 1900s, the Italians who invented the term fascism also described it as “estato corporativo,” meaning: the corporate state.

Very few Americans would argue the fact that corporations now control our government and have the dominant role in our society. Through a system of legalized bribery – campaign finance, lobbying and the revolving door between Washington and corporations – the most power global corporations dominant the legislative and political process like never before. Senator Huey Long had it right when he warned: “When fascism comes to America, it will come in the form of democracy.”

As President Franklin D. Roosevelt once described fascism: “The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it comes strong than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism — ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power.”

The most blatant modern example of this was the bailout of Wall Street, when the “too big to fail” banks got politicians to promptly hand out trillions of tax dollars in support and subsidies to the very people who caused the crisis, without any of them being held accountable.

XI :: Modern Day Slavery

Another shocking example of how far we have descended into fascism is the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which is a group of corporate executives who literally write government legislation. They have gone as far as setting up a system that imprisons the poor and then puts them to work, instead of paying living wages to non-imprisoned workers. Make no mistake, this is a modern day system of slavery unfolding before our eyes.

At the leadership of ALEC and various other Economic Elite organizations, poverty has essentially become a crime. To demonstrate these attacks against the poor, there was $17 billion cut from public housing programs, while there was an increase of $19 billion in programs for building prisons, “effectively making the construction of prisons the nation’s main housing program for the poor [71].” Before laws began to be rewritten in 1980, with direct input from ALEC [72], we had a prison population of 500,000 citizens. After laws were rewritten to target poor inner city citizens with much more severe penalties, the US prison population skyrocketed to 2.4 million people.

We now have the largest prison population in the world. With only 4% of the world’s population, we have 25% of the world’s prison population. As I reported previously, in a report entitled, “American Gulag: World’s Largest Prison Complex [71]“:

“The US, by far, has more of its citizens in prison than any other nation on earth. China, with a billion citizens, doesn’t imprison as many people as the US, with only 308 million American citizens. The US per capita statistics are 700 per 100,000 citizens. In comparison, China has 110 per 100,000. In the Middle East, the repressive regime in Saudi Arabia imprisons 45 per 100,000. US per capita levels are equivalent to the darkest days of the Soviet Gulag.”

XII :: The Death Toll

The dramatic increase in poverty has obviously torn many families apart and caused a devastating psychological toll, but consider the increase in deaths as a result of poverty and severe wealth inequalities. This is a very difficult statistic to accurately measure, but Columbia University’s School of Public Health [73] conducted an intensive examination of mortality and medical data and estimated that “875,000 deaths in the US in 2000 could be attributed to a cluster of social factors bound up with poverty and income inequality.”

As a report by Debra Watson sums up [73] the study, “There is no reason to believe, after a decade that has seen sustained attacks on social programs and consistently high unemployment rates, that the social mortality rate has declined. On the contrary, it has likely risen.” Indeed, poverty and income inequality have skyrocketed since 2000.

Now, let’s consider the fact that, according to the Census Bureau, 31.1 million [74] people lived in poverty in 2000, and according to Columbia’s study 875,000 deaths came as a result. This means that 1 out of every 35.5 people living in poverty die annually as a result of their impoverishment. If you extrapolate this data to the 2009 total of 52.8 million people living in poverty, you get an estimate of 1,486,338 deaths within that year. Even if you use the lower poverty totals from the Census Bureau, 43.6 million people, you get an estimate of 1,228,169 deaths in 2009.

XIII :: Deliberate Systemic Attacks

The dramatic increase in economic inequality and poverty, along with the unprecedented rise in wealth within the top one-tenth of one percent of the population has not happened by mistake. It is the designed result of deliberate governmental and economic policy. It is the result of the richest people in the world, and the “too big to fail” banks, using the campaign finance and lobbying system to buy off politicians who implement policies designed to exploit 99.9% of the population for their financial gain. To call what is happening a “financial terrorist attack” on the United States, is not using hyperbole, it is the technical term for what is currently occurring.

Compare the million people who die annually as a result of these economic attacks, to the 2,977 that died on 9/11. As someone who lived three blocks from the World Trade Center, as tragic as 9/11 was, these economic attacks are much more severe and damaging to us as a nation, albeit a much slower and unseen death toll. Nonetheless, the result is of genocidal proportions. One can statistically compare the economic attacks on the US to the invasion of Iraq, which some estimate as leading to one million deaths. Once again, many of those deaths came in brutal and spectacular fashion in bombing campaigns known as “shock and awe.” However, the death toll compares to the hidden brutality of a four-year campaign of economic “shock and awe.” Just as Iraq was invaded, the US has been invaded by a global banking cartel.

As shocking as that is to realize, consider that this is happening throughout the world. While the US poverty death rate is probably higher than in most European countries, the Federal Reserve’s economic policies [75] — along with policies from the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and Bank of International Settlements — have caused rioting and uprisings over skyrocketing food prices and costs of living throughout the world. The fact of the matter, and very harsh and unfortunate reality of this crisis, is that the global economic central planners are deliberately carrying out genocidal economic policies.

As Che Guevara, a man who took on the global financial elite, once said, “The amount of poverty and suffering required for the emergence of a Rockefeller, and the amount of depravity that the accumulation of a fortune of such magnitude entails, are left out of the picture, and it is not always possible to make the people in general see this.”

When tens of trillions of dollars deliberately flow to the top economic one-tenth of one percent of the global population, while large percentages live in poverty, you have to conclude, in technical terms, that a Neo-Feudal-Fascist state is upon us. The rich have never been richer, while their paid off politicians make budget cuts for the poor and middle class, and cause the cost of basic necessities to skyrocket.

You can call me extreme, but the reality of this is extreme, these people, the global economic top one-tenth of one percent, are genocidal fascists carrying out a holocaust. Fascism has evolved. There is no need to get blood on your hands while rounding up people and putting them into concentration camps when you can do it through economic policy while sitting in a jacuzzi on a corporate jet, or in a three-piece custom-made Armani, completely detached and insulated from the world in which you plunder.

However, as what happens with all empires, greed and arrogance makes them overreach. The beaten down masses get to a point where they literally can’t live under these conditions. This desperation spreads throughout the population until it reaches a critical mass, then, suddenly, they rise up [75] and the empire begins to collapse… Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, Israel, (Northern Africa, the Middle East), Albania, Greece, Spain, Britain (Europe), Wisconsin…

The Economic Elite are overreaching and their empire is collapsing.

The decentralized global rebellion [75] has begun…

Welcome to World War III.

Which side of history do you want to be on?

As a wise old friend once said [76], “You can’t be neutral on a moving train.”

– David DeGraw is the founder and editor of AmpedStatus.com [77]. His long-awaited book, The Road Through 2012: Revolution or World War III [78], will finally be released on September 28th. He can be emailed at David[@]AmpedStatus.com. You can follow David’s reporting daily on his new personal website: DavidDeGraw.org [79]

~ We are fighting to remain 100% independent, completely free from partisan influence. If you respect our work, please donate to support our efforts here [80].

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Article printed from ampedstatus.org: http://ampedstatus.org

URL to article: http://ampedstatus.org/exclusive-analysis-of-financial-terrorism-in-america-over-1-million-deaths-annually-62-million-people-with-zero-net-worth-as-the-economic-elite-make-off-with-46-trillion/

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[3] Abstract :: Welcome to World War III: #abstract
[4] Introduction: #intro
[5] I :: Poverty: #poverty
[6] II :: Food Insecurity: #food
[7] III :: Unemployment: #unemployment
[8] IV :: Declining Income: #income
[9] V :: How Much Wealth Do The Economic Elite Have?: #elite
[10] VI :: Who Rules America? Revealing The Economic Top 0.1%: #rules
[11] VII :: Tax Breaks For The Rich, Budget Cuts For The Rest Of Us: #tax
[12] VIII :: Debt Slavery: #debt
[13] IX :: Inflation: #inflation
[14] X :: The Beaten Masses: #passive
[15] XI :: Modern Day Slavery: #slavery
[16] XII :: The Death Toll: #death
[17] XIII :: Deliberate Systemic Attacks: #attacks
[18] The Economic Elite Vs. The People: http://ampedstatus.org/full-report-the-economic-elite-vs-the-people-of-the-united-states-of-america/
[19] declined by 28%: http://pewsocialtrends.org/files/2011/07/SDT-Wealth-Report_7-26-11_FINAL.pdf
[20] my analysis: http://ampedstatus.org/census-bureau-poverty-rate-drastically-undercounts-severity-of-poverty-in-america/
[21] 52,765,000: http://www.census.gov/hhes/povmeas/data/nas/tables/2009/web_tab4_nas_measures_historical.xls
[22] 15.5 million: http://www.childrensdefense.org/child-research-data-publications/data/state-of-americas-2011.pdf
[23] poverty rate would double: http://www.offthechartsblog.org/public-programs-keep-millions-out-of-poverty-new-study-shows/
[24] in half: http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/08/united-states-of-austerity
[25] 25.7 million: http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=460
[26] 45.8 million people: http://www.fns.usda.gov/pd/29SNAPcurrPP.htm
[27] cutting the funding: http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2011/05/congress-mulls-cuts-to-food-stamps-program-amid-record-number-of-recipients.html
[28] additional 22.5 million: http://www.arcamax.com/health/healthtips/s-917916-690577
[29] ShadowStats.com: http://ShadowStats.com
[30] 6.3 million: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/down-not-voices-long-term-unemployed-125453267.html
[31] 40.4 weeks: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/average-length-unemployment-surges-new-all-time-record-404-weeks?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+zerohedge%2Ffeed+(zero+hedge+-+on+a+long+enough+timeline%2C+the+survival+rate+for+everyone+drops+to+zero)
[32] 16-month high: http://www.challengergray.com/press/PressRelease.aspx?PressUid=184
[33] 10.6 million: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/us-economy-has-generate-256k-month-until-end-obamas-second-term-regain-lost-jobs-december-2007?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+zerohedge%2Ffeed+(zero+hedge+-+on+a+long+enough+timeline%2C+the+survival+rate+for+everyone+drops+to+zero)
[34] 577,000: http://www.thenation.com/blog/162577/after-debt-ceiling-debacle
[35] 60%: http://www.zerohedge.com/article/how-fed-spent-2-trillion-and-exchange-we-got-650000-temp-leisure-and-retail-jobs
[36] 12 months: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/23/us-economy-trades-high-pa_n_827360.html
[37] $8,588: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/04/us-usa-economy-incomes-idUSTRE77302W20110804
[38] quadrupled: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/with-executive-pay-rich-pull-away-from-rest-of-america/2011/06/13/AGKG9jaH_print.html
[39] summed up: http://www.tax.com/taxcom/taxblog.nsf/Permalink/UBEN-8AGMUZ?OpenDocument
[40] 28%: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/15/executive-pay-soars-worker-pay-stagnates_n_877519.html
[41] report: http://dollarsandsense.org/archives/2011/0711cypher.html
[42] 88% of income growth: http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/06/30/258388/corporate-profits-recovery/
[43] recently reported: http://www.zerohedge.com/article/attention-marxists-labors-share-national-income-drops-lowest-history
[44] $38.6 trillion: http://www.zerohedge.com/article/rich-are-about-get-very-very-rich-study-finds-global-millionaire-wealth-set-more-double-2020?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+zerohedge%2Ffeed+(zero+hedge+-+on+a+long+enough+timeline%2C+th
[45] $6.3 trillion: http://www.democracynow.org/2011/4/15/offshore_banking_and_tax_havens_have
[46] $1,000,000,000,000: http://www.pagetutor.com/trillion/index.html
[47] richest 400 people: http://ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2011020612/understanding-extreme-incomewealth-gap
[48] 40% of all wealth: http://www.vanityfair.com/society/features/2011/05/top-one-percent-201105?currentPage=all
[49] more wealth than 90%: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IykY6WlUIiA
[50] an analysis: http://ampedstatus.org/who-rules-america-an-investment-manager-breaks-down-the-economic-top-1-says-0-1-controls-political-and-legislative-process/
[51] Who Rules America?: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0078111560
[52] $27 million: http://washingtonindependent.com/107493/americas-super-rich-continue-to-make-mind-boggling-sums
[53] $145 billion: http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2010/01/wall_street_pay_for_2009_will.html
[54] $149 billion: http://www.aflcio.org/corporatewatch/paywatch/ceopay.cfm
[55] reported: http://articles.latimes.com/2010/aug/11/business/la-fi-insurance-salaries-20100811
[56] $72 million: http://blogs.courant.com/connecticut_insurance/2011/04/aetnas-former-ceo-ronald-willi.html
[57] war profiteering: http://daviddegraw.org/2011/08/leaked-document-bp-rules-iraq-with-stranglehold-over-economy-by-controlling-largest-oil-field/
[58] $36 billion: http://daviddegraw.org/2011/08/the-joke-is-on-us-once-again-big-five-oil-companies-reaped-36-billion-in-profit-last-quarter/
[59] only 18%: http://blogs.forbes.com/robertlenzner/2011/07/25/the-400-richest-americans-pay-an-18-tax-rate/?partner=yahoofeed
[60] 1,470 Americans: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/04/irs-incomes_n_918458.html
[61] $136,000: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/08/05-5
[62] 8.9%: http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2011/04/corporate-tax-rates-then-and-now/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheBigPicture+(The+Big+Picture)
[63] $16 trillion: http://www.usdebtclock.org/
[64] $1 trillion: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/12/student-loan-debt-may-top_n_848093.html
[65] 11.1%: http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2011/07/official-cpi-is-running-36-but-if-it.html
[66] 3.6%: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm
[67] increased 39%: http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/81577/icode/
[68] increased 34%: http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:B8jtf14xQHUJ:www.api.org/aboutoilgas/gasoline/upload/PumpPriceUpdate.pdf+increase+in+gas+cost+over+past+year&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESid6khfTkbgkS7LI6kZSMUKeP2v6gLMdcLTI7TtXvnkbblSVe2Fy9yNJHxWRMvTrP7ESmIsXunshYP4eiX7mVz7Uoh5SLovNFfErCGG7oVRU-eLES-PFBUePgmQIbYe6-DcqKps&sig=AHIEtbQKFTYQdzZpyN1ddpbOiAn_39xJmA
[69] lost 7.5%: http://www.zerohedge.com/article/gold-just-1-record-nominal-high-1444oz-risk-dollar-crisis-increases-day
[70] 10.8 million: http://daviddegraw.org/2011/07/this-is-what-a-collasping-ponzi-scheme-looks-like-housing-market-headed-off-a-cliff-as-a-shocking-10-8-million-mortgages-at-risk-of-default/
[71] housing program for the poor: http://ampedstatus.org/analysis-of-the-global-insurrection-against-neo-liberal-economic-domination-and-the-coming-american-rebellion-we-are-egypt-revolution-roundup-3/#gulag
[72] direct input from ALEC: http://www.justicepolicy.org/uploads/justicepolicy/documents/gaming_the_system.pdf
[73] Columbia University’s School of Public Health: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/jul2011/pove-j13.shtml
[74] 31.1 million: http://www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/p60-214.pdf
[75] Federal Reserve’s economic policies: http://ampedstatus.org/analysis-of-the-global-insurrection-against-neo-liberal-economic-domination-and-the-coming-american-rebellion-we-are-egypt-revolution-roundup-3/
[76] once said: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ehc3V1g5pm0
[77] AmpedStatus.com: http://AmpedStatus.com
[78] The Road Through 2012: Revolution or World War III: http://ampedstatus.com/word-from-the-watchtower-a-hard-rain-is-going-to-fall-introduction-to-the-road-through-2012-revolution-or-world-war-iii/
[79] DavidDeGraw.org: http://daviddegraw.org/
[80] donate to support our efforts here: http://ampedstatus.com/donation.php

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SANDERS: The American people are angry—and deservedly so. (VIDEO)

BY BERNIE SANDERS

Cross-posted from Reader Supported News

As House and Senate leaders fine-tuned rival deficit reduction plans on Wednesday, Sen. Bernie Sanders spoke on the Senate floor about the public’s strong belief that additional revenue from the wealthy should be part of any package to reduce red ink. He cited a new Washington Post poll that found 72 percent favor raising taxes on those who make more than $250,000 year. Despite those overwhelming numbers, he said, “We are marching down a path which will do exactly opposite of what the American people want.” He called Republican opposition to more revenue “fanatical.” He also faulted President Obama for a bargaining strategy that sugars down to this: “Retreat after retreat after retreat.” Of the competing House and Senate proposals Sanders bluntly concluded that one is bad and the other is much worse. He shared his assessment with radio host Ed Schultz.


The senator also summarized his analysis in this statement:

“The rich are getting richer, and their effective tax rate is the lowest in modern history. Many corporations are enjoying huge profits and, because of outrageous loopholes, pay nothing in taxes. Among many other absurdities, we lose about $100 billion every year from companies and individuals who stash their wealth in tax havens in the Cayman Islands, Bermuda and other locations.

“And yet, the Republicans have been fanatically determined to protect the interests of billionaires and large multi-national corporations so that they do not contribute one penny toward deficit reduction. The Republicans want the entire burden of deficit reduction sacrifice to be placed on the elderly, the sick, children, and working families. That is morally wrong and, in terms of getting us out of this recession, bad economic policy.

“Sadly, the Democrats have yielded far, far too much. In December, with the Democrats controlling the White House, the House of Representatives and the Senate they extended Bush’s tax breaks for the rich and lowered the tax rates on estates for the very rich. In April, they allowed tens of billions of dollars in cuts to vitally important programs for low- and moderate-income Americans.

“And now, we find ourselves debating two plans. The Reid plan, which calls for $2.2 trillion in cuts over a 10-year period, includes $900 billion in cuts (which will be determined later by committees) in education, health care, nutrition, affordable housing, child care and many other programs desperately needed by working families. Appropriately, it calls for meaningful cuts in military spending and ending the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Reid plan does not require the wealthiest people in this country and the largest corporations to pay one nickel in deficit reduction.

“The Reid plan is bad. The Boehner plan is much worse. It calls for large cuts in discretionary spending now and demands that this debt-ceiling discussion be revisited next year – which is totally absurd and which will likely keep the Congress paralyzed.

“Lastly, both plans call for a congressional committee to determine future efforts toward deficit reduction. Based on recent committees – Bowles-Simpson, the Gang of Six, etc. – I have little doubt that that new committee will call for major cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and will ask very little of the wealthy and multi-national corporations.

“Meanwhile, while all of this is occurring in Washington the American people have consistently stated, in poll after poll, that they want the wealthy and large corporations to pay their fair share of taxes and they want to protect Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. For example, a recent Washington Post poll found that 72 percent of the American people believe that Americans earning over $250,000 a year should pay more in taxes.

“Given that reality, is there any reason to wonder why the American people are so angry and frustrated with what’s going on in Washington?”

Author’s Bio:
Bernie Sanders is the independent U.S. Senator from Vermont. He is the longest serving independent member of Congress in American history. He is a member of the Senate’s Budget, Veterans, Environment, Energy, and H.E.L.P. (Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions) committees.

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America unmasked: The images that reveal the Ku Klux Klan is alive and kicking in 2009

Words by Leonard Doyle
ORIGINALLY posted Saturday, 21 February 2009
Source: Independent.co.uk
Photos by Anthony Karen

These images show members of the Ku Klux Klan as they want to be seen, scary and secretive and waiting in the wings for Barack and his colour-blind vision for America to fail. Anthony Karen, a former Marine and self-taught photojournalist was granted access to the innermost sanctum of the Klan. He doesn’t tell us how he did it but he was considered trustworthy enough to be invited into their homes and allowed to photograph their most secretive ceremonies, such as the infamous cross burnings.

When he talks about the Klan members he has encountered he tends not to dwell on the fate of their victims. Karen’s feat is that he takes us to places few photojournalists have been before, into the belly of the beast. The scenes he presents portray a kinder, gentler Klan. The mute photographs present an organisation that is far less threatening than the hate group of our popular imagination. Consciously or otherwise, his photographs hold our imagination in their grip while doing double duty as propaganda for the extremist right, much as Leni Riefenstahl’s work did for the Nazis.

Today the Klan is a mere shadow of what it used to be and there are at least 34 differently named Klan groups. “They are a fairly low-rent bunch of people, many of whom use their local organisations as a way of raising money for themselves,” says Mark Potok, director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Alabama.

Photographs of the Klan folk in their hooded regalia aren’t all that rare. The archives of America’s newspapers contain plenty of front-page photographs of lynchings throughout the past century. Three years ago, James Cameron, the last survivor of an attempted lynching died, thankfully of natural causes.

The older generation of Black Americans grew up hearing about Klan lynchings whispered over the dinner table but never mentioned outside the home. At the Klan’s height, around the turn of the 20th century, some 30 to 40 lynchings a year were being recorded. It is believed that there were in fact many more unrecorded deaths, especially in the cotton-growing south where the deaths of black field-hands were often not recorded.

Karen’s photographs show an entirely different side of the far right. He presents a 58-year-old, fifth-generation seamstress he calls “Ms Ruth” and he has photographed her running up an outfit for the “Exalted Cyclops” or head of a local KKK chapter. She gets paid about $140 for her trouble. Karen tells us that she uses the earnings to help care for her 40-year-old quadriplegic daughter, who was injured in a car accident 10 years ago.

Karen’s images of the Klan and its supporters regularly appear on the recruiting websites of the far right. Out of context, the images of hooded Klansmen and their families tell us little of the real story – the inexorable rise in the number of extremist organisations in America.

The number of hate-crime victims in the US is also rising and as America’s middle and working class gets thrown out of work, the hate groups behind the crimes are flourishing. As people lose their homes to foreclosure and, without the benefit of a safety net, find themselves slipping into poverty, there is already a search for scapegoats underway. Immigrants from central and South America have become particular targets as the grim economic times take hold.

KKK wedding, deep in the Louisiana woods. The Klan subculture is creepy in its sheer ordinariness mixed with constant intimations of ugly violence and stubborn ignorance. (A. Karen)

Anyone who doubts the capacity of the modern KKK for violence need look no further than the recent case of 43-year-old Cynthia Lynch of Tulsa, Oklahoma. She had never been out of her home state before she travelled to Louisiana to be initiated into the Klan. She was met off the bus by two members of a group that calls itself the Sons of Dixie and taken to a campsite in the woods 60 miles north of New Orleans.

There, Lynch’s head was shaven and after 24 hours of Klan boot camp, including chanting and running with torches, she had had enough and asked to be taken to town. After an argument, the group’s “Grand Lordship”, Chuck Foster, is alleged to have shot her to death. He was charged with second-degree murder and is awaiting trial. Just as shocking is that the event happened in Bogalusa, a backwoods Louisiana town that was once known as the Klan capital of the US.

In the 1960s the Klan operated with impunity in Bogalusa and once held a public meeting to decide which black church to burn down next. Local Klan members were suspected of ambushing two black policemen in 1965, killing one and wounding the other. No one was ever tried for the crimes.

Despite all its notoriety the Klan has been a spent force for decades with nothing like the clout it once wielded. At its peak the KKK boasted four million members and controlled the governor’s mansions and legislatures of several states. Since the 1930s the KKK has been in a state of disorganisation and today it probably has 6,000 members. But the economic crisis is swelling their ranks and already, a month after the inauguration of the first black president, the tidal wave of interracial harmony that greeted Obama’s election is starting to recede.

More than 400 hate-related incidents, from cross-burnings to effigies of President Obama hanging from nooses have been reported, according to law-enforcement authorities and Potok’s organisation, which files lawsuits against hate groups aimed at making them bankrupt.

Late last year, two suspected skinheads who had links to a violent Klan chapter in Kentucky were charged with plotting to kill 88 black students. They were then going to assassinate President Obama by blasting him from a speeding car while wearing white tuxedos and top hats. They were never going to succeed, given the huge security net around Obama, but the fact that they had planned such an outlandish attack may be a harbinger of things to come.

“There is a tremendous backlash to Obama’s election,” says Richard Barrett, the leader of the Nationalist Movement, another white supremacist group. “Many people look at the flag of the Republic of New Africa that was hoisted over the White House as an act of war.

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The class politics of the US debt ceiling crisis

BY PATRICK MARTIN, wsws.org

Obama: Still point man for the Greatest Robbery of Our Time

OFFICIAL WASHINGTON AND AMERICAN MEDIA attention will be focused for the next two weeks on the August 2 deadline for raising the federal debt ceiling. Without congressional action to increase the debt limit by that date, according to the Treasury Department, the US government will be unable to borrow money to cover payments, including Social Security checks being sent out to 50 million recipients on August 3, and interest payments on US government bonds due later in the month.

In order to understand the significance of the debt ceiling crisis, and the measures being proposed to resolve it, it is necessary to cut through the lies and distortions of the Democratic and Republican politicians in Washington, reinforced by the commentaries in the corporate-controlled media, both liberal and conservative.

Why is the demand for “deficit reduction” now being voiced so unanimously in every quarter of official American politics? What are the fundamental class issues that underlie this campaign?

The American ruling elite is engaged in the greatest robbery of working people in US history. In the bank bailout of 2008-2009, the financial aristocracy effectively transferred to the federal government its bad debts and losses from a decade of reckless speculation. Now the working class is being compelled to pay the price for Wall Street’s looting of the Treasury through the destruction of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other social programs in education, the environment, transportation and housing.

When they hear Barack Obama, John Boehner and other political and media representatives of big business declare that “there is no money” to sustain vital programs on which tens of millions of working people depend for their survival, workers should think back to the financial crisis that erupted less than three years ago. There was no suggestion then that “there is no money” to save the banks from collapse. On the contrary, staggering and essentially unlimited sums—as much as $23.7 trillion in combined cash, loans and guarantees from the Treasury, Federal Reserve and other institutions—were made available to defend the capitalist system and the financial interests of the super-rich.

There is a strong element of political manipulation in the current conflict over the federal debt ceiling. The congressional Republicans initially sought to use the legislation to raise the debt ceiling—a routine bookkeeping measure carried out dozens of times over the last four decades—to curry favor with ultra-right Tea Party elements. By holding the debt ceiling bill hostage, they would force the Obama administration to carry out deeper cuts, just as they did in April and May by blocking passage of the budget for the 2011 fiscal year.

These calculations were upset, however, when Obama proposed even greater spending cuts than those demanded by the House Republicans, tied to a small increase in taxes on the wealthy. He even proposed to put cuts in Social Security on the table, leading to House Republican complaints that they had been “outflanked” by the White House.

Obama clearly welcomes the element of crisis, injected by the August 2 deadline, to create the political atmosphere in which such massive cuts can be implemented.

In this conflict, the Obama administration represents the spearhead of the US ruling class assault on working people. His proposals for closing a few tax loopholes that benefit corporations and the wealthy were largely regarded by the financial aristocracy as a minor inconvenience that would provide a political cover for the overall budget cutting. The measures were supposedly a demonstration of “shared sacrifice,” as though millionaires paying slightly more for a corporate jet could be equated with an elderly couple compelled to choose between paying rent and paying medical bills, or a student forced to drop out of college for lack of a Pell Grant.

Moreover, the multimillionaires have been assured that any small charges on their wealth incorporated into an eventual deficit-reduction package will be more than recouped in tax reform proposals that will slash overall tax rates on corporations and high-income households.

No one should be under any illusions about the dimensions of the cuts that are being worked out in Washington. The Obama administration’s focus is on implementing changes that will be devastating to the working class. These cuts will plunge millions of working people into conditions of poverty, hunger, disease and premature death.

As far as the ruling class is concerned, this is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to fatally undermine social programs, particularly Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, which the financial elite regards as an intolerable burden. To the extent that Obama has taken the lead in this attack, he clearly feels himself strengthened politically, while the congressional Republicans are in visible disarray.

Nonetheless, the outcome of the political conflicts in Washington is not cut and dried. The divisions within and between the two capitalist parties could, at least temporarily, lead to a deadlock that runs past the August 2 deadline.

While this would undoubtedly produce a media firestorm, and perhaps a significant disruption in the financial markets, the essential course of events would remain the same. Obama’s only concrete statement about what happens if the August 2 deadline is missed—that he “cannot guarantee” that Social Security checks will go out as planned—demonstrates that in the event of a new financial crisis the class divisions will emerge even more starkly. He made no threat that payments to billionaire bondholders or giant defense contractors will be held up.

In embracing deficit reduction as its battle cry, the Obama administration has revealed its true class character. It is a government of, by and for the financial aristocracy—as demonstrated in the enormous influx of campaign cash for Obama’s reelection, more than double that of all the Republicans combined.

The course of the Obama administration completely explodes the claims of its liberal apologists, from the New York Times to the Nation magazine and groups like the International Socialist Organization, who portrayed Obama as a “progressive” political figure whose election would inaugurate a new era of social reform in America. Instead, Obama has escalated the war in Afghanistan, launched new military onslaughts in Libya, Yemen and Somalia, continued the Bush administration’s attacks on democratic rights, and now seeks to outdo the Republicans in imposing austerity policies at home.

The Socialist Equality Party calls on working people to oppose all cuts in social programs, regardless of which party authors them or what arguments they use to justify them. The Democrats and Republicans are carrying out the dictates of a tiny fraction of the American population, the bankers and corporate CEOs and super-rich investors—those who bear responsibility for the crisis in the first place.

The first step in this struggle is for American workers to break politically with the corporate-controlled two-party system and fight for the building of a mass socialist movement of the working class in the US and internationally. This is the perspective advanced by the Socialist Equality Party.

Patrick Martin writes for the WSWS.ORG, a socialist organization. 

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