Happy New Year

"Some Assembly Required" is worth quoting at length today:

New Year's Day is an arbitrary and mostly fictional marker. It is common to pretend that some clear divisor has been set between what was and what will be. But that is a fiction mainly used to peddle prognostications that turn out to be as false as the occasion. 
  For my part, I believe that more of the same will predominate, as always. History creeps in when we're not looking. We're told that the good times will continue, but most Americans won't know what the pundits are talking about. If times are so good, why are the majority of Americans worse off? The reality is that there has been little if any recovery over the last four years. Or eight, to give Obama his due.
More of the same: the global economy will not seize up suddenly and leave us all to starve in the dark, but it won't change much for the better, either. Wars and atrocities and inequality and rape and torture will all go on, and go on being ignored. So will the hollowing out of the American middle class, as what once were government prerogatives of a self-governing people continue to be treatied away to international corporations. 
  Police will continue their extra-juridical execution of lower caste young men and the streets will pulse with ineffective protests – because protesting in the streets will not change the balance of power. Dying in the streets in large numbers might, but not any time soon.
The number of Americans trying to survive without a job will continue to increase, the effective standard of living for most of the population will continue to decline. The dollar is not going away and neither is the euro; high priced oil will return as fracking starts to subside, and climate change will continue to be ignored as we not-so-slowly burn our way to oblivion. The world’s finite supplies of petroleum, along with most other resources on which our extractive civilization depends, will continue depleting while we continue our blind faith in forever.

More of the same. We'll call it progress.

The Eternal Divide: A Broken Record

Some things I encounter have to be put out there in toto, or much of the point is lost. When once the country rolls over and dies because of the disparity of wealth, such pieces as this will seem prescient. Every single one of these points is telling (not to mention outrageous), but I'm absolutely convinced that no one in this country is the least bit concerned. We're more intent on fiddling while the country falls down about our ears.

 

This article--and it's not included in its entirety--appeared on the Alternet blog. It's just variation on a theme that's been echoing through the nation's consciousness for several years now. But it doesn't seem to be striking any chords.

 A recent posting detailed how upper middle class Americans are rapidly losing ground to the one-percenters who averaged $5 million in wealth gains over just three years. It also noted that the global 1% has increased their wealth from $100 trillion to $127 trillion in just three years.

The information came from the Credit Suisse 2014 Global Wealth Databook (GWD), which goes on to reveal much more about the disappearing middle class.

1. Each Year Since the Recession, America's Richest 1% Have Made More Than the Cost of All U.S. Social Programs

In effect, a reverse transfer from the poor to the rich. Even as conservatives blame Social Security for being too costly.

Much of the 1% wealth just sits there, accumulating more wealth. The numbers are nearly unfathomable. Depending on the estimate, the 1% took in anywhere from $2.3 trillion to $5.7 trillion per year. (All numeric analysis is detailed here.)

Even the smaller estimate of $2.3 trillion per year is more than the budget for Social Security ($860 billion), Medicare ($524 billion), Medicaid ($304 billion), and the entire safety net ($286 billion for SNAP, WIC [Women, Infants, Children], Child Nutrition, Earned Income Tax Credit, Supplemental Security Income, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, and Housing).

2. Almost None of the New 1% Wealth Led To Innovation and Jobs

In 2005, for every $1 of financial wealth there was 66 cents of non-financial (home) wealth. Ten years later, for every $1 of financial wealth there was just 43 cents of non-financial (home) wealth.

What happens to all this financial wealth?

Over 90% of the assets owned by millionaires are held in low-risk investments (bonds and cash), the stock market, and real estate. Business startup costs made up less than 1% of the investments of high net worth individuals in North America in 2011. A recent study found that less than 1 percent of all entrepreneurs came from very rich or very poor backgrounds. They come from the middle class.

On the corporate side, stock buybacks are employed to enrich executives rather than to invest in new technologies. In 1981, major corporations were spending less than 3 percent of their combined net income on buybacks, but in recent years they've been spending up to 95 percent of their profits on buybacks and dividends.

3. Just 47 Wealthy Americans Own More Than Half of the U.S. Population

Oxfam reported that just 85 people own as much as half the world. Here in the U.S., with nearly a third of the world's wealth, just 47 individuals own more than all 160 million people (about 60 million households) below the median wealth level of about $53,000.

4. The Upper Middle Class of America Owns a Smaller Percentage of Wealth Than the Corresponding Groups in All Major Nations Except Russia and Indonesia.

The upper middle class in the U.S., defined as everyone in the top half below the richest 20%, owns 11.9 percent of the wealth. Indonesia at 10.5 percent and Russia at 7.5 percent are worse off, but in all other nations the corresponding upper middle classes own 12 to 27 percent of the wealth.

America's bottom half compares even less favorably to the world: dead last, with just 1.3 percent of national wealth. Only Russia comes close to that dismal share, at 1.9 percent. The bottom half in all other nations own 2.6 to 10.2 percent of the wealth.

5. Ten Percent of the World's Total Wealth Was Taken by the Global 1% in the Past Three Years

As in the U.S., the middle class is disappearing at the global level. An incredible one of every ten dollars of global wealth was transferred to the elite 1% in just three years. A level of inequality deemed unsustainable three years ago has gotten even worse.

 This is the bad news, and it's surely bad enough, but if you continue to read the article, it goes on to suggest that a so-called transaction tax could be used to get the richest to contribute their fair share towards the cost of everything. They don't pay anywhere near that now, you can be sure.

Map of World Wealth

Where the Fat Cats Are

The map of world wealth

This is a map of the world weighted not by land mass or navigation lines but around how much wealth each country has. As you can see, North America and Western Europe balloon to enormous proportions — even after adjusting for purchasing power, 46 percent of global wealth in 2002 was in their hands. The horror of this map is the shrunken husk of Africa. That’s a lot of people living with very little.

Just for Edification

Military budget.  List of countries by military expenditures (in billions of US dollars):

• United States - $640.0
• People's Republic of China - $188.0
• Russia - $87.8
• Saudi Arabia - $67.0
• France - $61.2
• United Kingdom - $57.9
• Germany - $48.8
• Japan - $48.6
• India - $47.4
• South Korea - $33.9

Source: Here

As has been observed time and again, the U.S. outspends the next nine biggest military spenders combined. This country spends almost 37 percent of all the money spent by the entire world for military purposes. With our country coming apart and falling down, doesn't this seem like the basest stupidity? And to think: we've got idiots in Congress saying we don't spend enough.

It's Far Worse

"When I woke up today, I thought I knew roughly how much of a problem income inequality is in America. But then I saw this graph showing just how much the richest 1 percent make, and it shook me to my core so completely that I now realize everything I thought I knew is wrong: The bottom 70 percent of Americans are actually experiencing NEGATIVE growth since the year 2000. Down is really up! The richest 1 percent have tripled their money EVERY year since 2005." (Source)

Freelancers Taking Over

 Ran across this interesting piece puttering around today.

A new report shows some 53 million Americans—or 34 percent of the U.S. workforce—are now working as freelancers in some capacity. "This is more than an economic change," asserts the report, a joint effort from the Freelancer's Union and freelance markeplaces oDesk and eLance. It's also "a cultural and social shift" that will "have major impacts on how Americans conceive of and organize their lives, their communities, and their economic power." 

That's more than a third of the workforce. I am one of these guys. I do freelance editing for a publishing house. And I fit easily into one of the demographics below. I don't need to do this work, but I like it, and it's nice it pays a little something in return. I'm not saying I'd do this without pay, but . . . well, you take my point.

Here's how the report breaks these 34 million people out:

• Independent contractors (21 million). This group hews closest to our "traditional" idea of freelancing: individuals whose main source of employment involves working on a project-to-project basis in their field. They make up about 40 percent of freelancers.
• Moonlighters (14.3 million). These are individuals who work regular full-time jobs and also do some amount of freelance work. This group includes 27 percent of freelancers. 
• Diversified workers (9.3 million). These are our serious hustlers, the folks pulling in income from multiple sources, including traditional employment and freelance work. A diversified worker may have a 20-hour per week bartending or retail job and supplement her income with freelance graphic design work and some time as an Uber driver. This group makes up about 18 percent of freelancers. 
• Temp workers (5.5 million). Temp workers are those working with a single employer, client, job, or project but on a temporary basis. This could be "a business strategy consultant working for one startup client" (the report's example) or a recent college graduate doing grunt or admin work for different companies each week through a temp agency. They make up about one-tenth of freelancers.
• Freelance business owners (2.8 million). This group includes people employ between one and five others and who consider themselves both freelancers and business owners. They make up 5 percent of the freelance economy.

And there are some other observations:

• 77 percent say they make as much or more money now than they did before becoming a freelancer
• About half (53 percent) say going freelance was totally their preference; the rest say it was out of necessity. 
• The main reason people take on freelance work is to earn extra money (68 percent), followed by the ability to have a flexible schedule (42 percent).

What the report doesn't address are the penetrating questions posed above, which all boil down basically to what's this doing to us? It's a major cultural and social shift, with major impacts, we're told. But you look in vein for what this might mean. Which upon reflection seems reasonable since analyzing and explaining major cultural shifts is something that gets done after they get done. Would be nice to know where we're headed though.

8 Facts . . .

The name of the piece is "8 facts that explain what's wrong with American health care." Wanna know what they are? My guess is, you already do know some of them, if you're a reasonably well-informed American . . . and if you're a knee-jerk reactionary or Tea Partier, you're going to deny the facts anyway. But then again what are the odds, unless you're a government snoop (and I have no doubt you're out there and I'm on a hundred watch lists), that you would be reading this subversive's screed?

So back to the point: 8 Facts that explain what's wrong with American health care. You should certainly read the entire piece. I've just hit some of the highlight language for you here. But the whole read is certainly worth your time.

1. Americans pay way, way more for it than anyone else.

"We spend $2.8 trillion on healthcare annually. That works out to about one-sixth of the total economy and more than $8,500 per person — and way more than any other country."

2. We pay doctors when they provide lots of health care, not when they provide good health care.

The best way for a doctor to make money in the United States right now is simple: prescribe treatments.The American health-care system by and large runs on what experts describe as a "fee-for-service" system. For every service a doctor provides — whether that's a primary care physician conducting an annual physical or an orthopedic surgeon replacing a knee — they typically get a lump sum of money. That's how most businesses work. Apple gets more money when it sells more iPads and the Ford gets more money when it sells more cars. But health care isn't like iPads or cars. Or, at least, it's not supposed to be.

 3. Half of the health care spending goes for five percent of the population.

 4. Our health insurance system is the product of random WWII-era tax provisions.

The health insurance tax break is the biggest in the federal budget; the government loses out on $260 billion annually by not taxing health benefits. The majority of non-elderly Americans get their health insurance at work, and with good reason: the tax-free dollar can buy a lot more medical care.

5. Insurance companies have small profit margins.

As to who makes the most money, it's mostly drug companies and device manufacturers — the people who make the things that insurance companies buy. They typically run profit margins around 20 percent. One reason the cost of American health care is so high is that insurers are so weak. Having hundreds of different carriers, for example, means no one insurer has lots of negotiating power — hence those high prices drug and device makers can charge.

6. Getting health care in the United States is dangerous.

We don't know exactly how many Americans are killed in hospitals each year, but we do know that it is a lot. In 1999, the Institute of Medicine published a seminal report titled To Err is Human, which estimated that at least 44,000 patients — and as many as 98,000 — die in hospitals each year as results of medical errors. Even using the lower-bound figure, that would mean medical errors in hospitals kill more people annually than "such feared threats as motor-vehicle wrecks, breast cancer, and AIDS." A follow-up study published in 2013 argued that the IOM numbers were a vast underestimate, and that medical errors contribute to the deaths of between 210,000 and 440,000 patients.

 7. One-third of health care spending isn't helping.

The United States spends $765 billion annually (about one third of our overall health care dollars) on things that do not make Americans any healthier. "I'm always amazed at these conversations I have with physicians," says Amitabh Chandra, a health economist at Harvard. "They'll openly say that about 50 percent of what happens in medicine is waste, but it's hard to always know which care was waste." Much of the waste in our system has to do with the fact that we run an inefficient health-care system, in which hundreds of health insurance plans all charge different prices for the same surgeries and scans. That requires lots of billing staff: for every three doctors in the United States, there are two administrative staff to handle all the paperwork. That's unique to the US system.

 

8.  Obamacare is not universal health care.

Obamacare doesn't eliminate [people without health insurance] in America; instead, it cuts the number of people lacking coverage about in half. Even after Obamacare is fully implemented, budget forecasters still expect that 31 million Americans will lack insurance coverage — a bigger group than the people buying coverage on the exchanges. Our uninsured rate will still be in the double digits, hovering around 11 percent.

This is Why I Read "Some Assembly Required"

I don't miss "Some Assembly Required." Classy, very classy cynicism . . . oh, and truth.

================================

 Walks Like A Duck: US forces have begun conducting “military operations” against the al-Shabaab rebels in Somalia. To date the effort appears to be limited to air strikes, but you have to start somewhere.   

 Dollar Diplomacy: Facing economic threats from the US and UK, Israel has backed down from its plans to steal a thousand acres of land from Palestinians on the West Bank. It seems that taking Palestinian lives is acceptable, but taking their land is not.

 
Supersized: Climate scientists say there is a 50/50 chance for a 'megadrought' lasting 30 years to settle into the American Southwest, with an 80% likelihood of a 10-year 'extreme' drought. Currently over 80% of California is in 'extreme' drought and nearly 60% qualifies as 'exceptional'. Remember the good old days when the Central Valley fed the nation?

Noted: The US health-care system, taken by itself, would be the fifth largest economy in the world.

War Ware Where: The US is opening a drone base in the middle of nowhere the Sahara as a base for surveilling and attacking Islamic jihadists in North and West Africa. Attendance at weddings is expected to plunge dramatically. 
 

Fortune, Cookies: Now that low paid Chinese factory workers have dismantled US manufacturing and turned well paid workers into grab and run clerks, the Chinese assault on high skilled jobs is underway. Training programs for the newly unemployed are futile if there will be no jobs left in the country regardless of 'skills'. What part of 'race to the bottom' didn't you understand? Why do you keep falling for these damned 'trade agreements' that are nothing but suicide pacts?

 
If, Then: If you are one of 2.5 million homeowners who are facing an average $250 a month bump in your mortgage payment within the next 3 years, are you expecting a 10 – 15% pay raise, or are you going to stop eating?

Happy Labor Day Tomorrow

Don't forget to celebrate the dignity of labor tomorrow.

Equal Pay for Equal Work

A new oracle of truth with humor is John Oliver, a graduate of "The Daily Show." Here he is on why women get paid less than men for the same work. It's as true as is is hilarious.

Broken Record

Maybe this is the flip side of the huge and growing disparity of wealth in this land of the free and home of the brave. Seventy-five percent of those who aren't in the fabled 1 percent, are gloomy about their financial futures. That's three-quarters of the country that say things are bad, and they ain't getting better.

Here's the gist of it: the rich aren't just getting poorer, most of the rest of us are getting poorer. Americans aren't buying stuff, they are putting off major decisions, and they're not retiring when they wanted. And they don't think things are getting better by any stretch of the imagination.

Some of what the source article says:

In its first large-scale study of household finances, the U.S. central bank uncovered lingering effects of the sharpest economic downturn since the Great Depression, with 42 percent of respondents saying they had delayed major purchases and 18 percent saying they put off a major life decision, including buying a home or getting married, due to the crisis.

Thirty-six percent said they now planned to retire later, according to the online survey.

In a finding that could figure into the Fed's monetary policy debate, three-fourths of households said they expected their incomes to be the same or lower over the next year.

                                     ===============================

Economic inequality in the United States has been receiving a lot of attention. But it’s not merely an issue of the rich getting richer. The typical American household has been getting poorer, too.

The inflation-adjusted net worth for the typical household was $87,992 in 2003. Ten years later, it was only $56,335, or a 36 percent decline, according to a study financed by the Russell Sage Foundation. Those are the figures for a household at the median point in the wealth distribution — the level at which there are an equal number of households whose worth is higher and lower. But during the same period, the net worth of wealthy households increased substantially.

The Cost of Doing Crooked Business

The cost is actually pretty low, if you're a crooked bank. Which is to say if you're a bank, although I'd really love to see some press on the honest bankers out there. Surely there are some. The point to remember here is that these fines don't mean diddly to these scumbags. They are simply the cost of doing business as usual, which is to say, keeping the world constantly on the brink of economic catastrophe.

Pocket Change to These People. Oughta be Putting the CEO's Asses in Stir

Random Stories

With the subtitle: Mostly bad news. The following headlines appeared in today's USA Today.

• Economy shows new signs of weakness -- Well, for the regular people,the 99 percent of us who don't inhabit the realms of unreality where there is no such thing as not enough money to do any damn thing you want, this is not a great surprise. In fact, I would argue that the so-called "recovery" has not arrived for most of those millions brought low by the recession. The real question is whether it ever will.
• Police: Boy's parents researched hot-car deaths -- A mom and dad in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, did some Internet research on child deaths inside of vehicles and the temperatures required for that to happen. Then the dad drives their 22-month old toddler to his job and leaves him locked in the SUV for 7 hours. The little boy died of hypothermia. The father claimed he "forgot" the kid was in the car. I don't know if there is a hell, but there ought to be. With a special place for people like this. 
• Critical need for primary care providers -- Bottom line is U.S. because of population growth, more aging people, and the Affordable Care Act is expected to need 52,000 more primary care physicians by 2025 and we're going to fall far short. There are a number of issues including funding for medical residencies, the rising cost of med school, more lucrative specialty care fields, and the scope of practice laws (states have been slow in allowing PAs and nurse practitioners to take over services traditionally provided by physicians.) I think the only thing this country is going to have more of by 2025 is idiots and poor people. Everything else, we're going to fall short.
• Ebola crisis now deadliest ever -- When does good news come out of Africa? The crisis in western Africa is the worst ever and it's threatening to spread. 400 dead already. This Ebola virus is deadly. Causes high fever, vomiting, muscle pain, diarrhea and can lead to massive internal bleeding and organ failure. It kills 90 percent of its victims. It's spread by simple contact with victim's (human or animal) fluids, tissues, or blood. Traditional African burial rituals, suspicion of foreign doctors, and just plain ole ignorance are not helping in the fight.
• Iraqi insurgents announce new Islamic state -- This Al-qaeda breakaway bunch (ISIL--Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant--they left because Al-qaeda wasn't radical enough) has overrun parts of Syria and northern Iraq. They say they are now a new Islamic caliphate. I guess we'll have to see, but another piece on the editorial page that asks "If the U.S. is going to re-engage, it should do so with the means to win." sends chills up my spine. Can anyone in their right mind think what we should do is get entangled in that shit again?

Rare (I suspect) But Out There

Here's something you're not going to run across every day, mainly because you forget that there are such people out there. But there are, and I just stumbled across a couple of web sites that you should know about. It's always dangerous to stereotype, always flawed. And examples like this are the reason why. It gives me a good deal of hope to know that this guy and others like him are out there.

Try this site.

And this one, Wealth for the Common Good.

I hear you, bro! Thanks!

“I made millions studying the math of mortgages and bonds and helping bankers pass the Chartered Financial Analyst Exam. It isn’t fair that I have retired in comfort after a career working with financial instruments while people who worked as nurses, teachers, soldiers, etc. are worried about paying for their future, their healthcare, and their children’s educations. They are the backbone of this country that allowed me to succeed. I am willing to pay more taxes so that everyone can look forward to a secure future like I do. I am the 1%. I stand with the 99%. (Which equals 100% of America.) Tax me.”
– Carl Schweser, founder of Schweser Study Program for the CFA (now called Kaplan Schweser)
- See more at: http://wealthforcommongood.org/campaigns/build-a-more-just-economy/#sthash.lQGtl8Rx.dpuf

“I made millions studying the math of mortgages and bonds and helping bankers pass the Chartered Financial Analyst Exam. It isn’t fair that I have retired in comfort after a career working with financial instruments while people who worked as nurses, teachers, soldiers, etc. are worried about paying for their future, their healthcare, and their children’s educations. They are the backbone of this country that allowed me to succeed. I am willing to pay more taxes so that everyone can look forward to a secure future like I do. I am the 1%. I stand with the 99%. (Which equals 100% of America.) Tax me.”
– Carl Schweser, founder of Schweser Study Program for the CFA (now called Kaplan Schweser)
- See more at: http://wealthforcommongood.org/campaigns/build-a-more-just-economy/#sthash.lQGtl8Rx.dpuf

“I made millions studying the math of mortgages and bonds and helping bankers pass the Chartered Financial Analyst Exam. It isn’t fair that I have retired in comfort after a career working with financial instruments while people who worked as nurses, teachers, soldiers, etc. are worried about paying for their future, their healthcare, and their children’s educations. They are the backbone of this country that allowed me to succeed. I am willing to pay more taxes so that everyone can look forward to a secure future like I do. I am the 1%. I stand with the 99%. (Which equals 100% of America.) Tax me.”
– Carl Schweser, founder of Schweser Study Program for the CFA (now called Kaplan Schweser)
- See more at: http://wealthforcommongood.org/campaigns/build-a-more-just-economy/#sthash.lQGtl8Rx.dpuf

“I made millions studying the math of mortgages and bonds and helping bankers pass the Chartered Financial Analyst Exam. It isn’t fair that I have retired in comfort after a career working with financial instruments while people who worked as nurses, teachers, soldiers, etc. are worried about paying for their future, their healthcare, and their children’s educations. They are the backbone of this country that allowed me to succeed. I am willing to pay more taxes so that everyone can look forward to a secure future like I do. I am the 1%. I stand with the 99%. (Which equals 100% of America.) Tax me.”
– Carl Schweser, founder of Schweser Study Program for the CFA (now called Kaplan Schweser)
- See more at: http://wealthforcommongood.org/campaigns/build-a-more-just-economy/#sthash.lQGtl8Rx.dpuf

“I made millions studying the math of mortgages and bonds and helping bankers pass the Chartered Financial Analyst Exam. It isn’t fair that I have retired in comfort after a career working with financial instruments while people who worked as nurses, teachers, soldiers, etc. are worried about paying for their future, their healthcare, and their children’s educations. They are the backbone of this country that allowed me to succeed. I am willing to pay more taxes so that everyone can look forward to a secure future like I do. I am the 1%. I stand with the 99%. (Which equals 100% of America.) Tax me.”
– Carl Schweser, founder of Schweser Study Program for the CFA (now called Kaplan Schweser)
- See more at: http://wealthforcommongood.org/campaigns/build-a-more-just-economy/#sthash.lQGtl8Rx.dpuf

“I made millions studying the math of mortgages and bonds and helping bankers pass the Chartered Financial Analyst Exam. It isn’t fair that I have retired in comfort after a career working with financial instruments while people who worked as nurses, teachers, soldiers, etc. are worried about paying for their future, their healthcare, and their children’s educations. They are the backbone of this country that allowed me to succeed. I am willing to pay more taxes so that everyone can look forward to a secure future like I do. I am the 1%. I stand with the 99%. (Which equals 100% of America.) Tax me.”
– Carl Schweser, founder of Schweser Study Program for the CFA (now called Kaplan Schweser)
- See more at: http://wealthforcommongood.org/campaigns/build-a-more-just-economy/#sthash.lQGtl8Rx.dpuf

“I made millions studying the math of mortgages and bonds and helping bankers pass the Chartered Financial Analyst Exam. It isn’t fair that I have retired in comfort after a career working with financial instruments while people who worked as nurses, teachers, soldiers, etc. are worried about paying for their future, their healthcare, and their children’s educations. They are the backbone of this country that allowed me to succeed. I am willing to pay more taxes so that everyone can look forward to a secure future like I do. I am the 1%. I stand with the 99%. (Which equals 100% of America.) Tax me.”
– Carl Schweser, founder of Schweser Study Program for the CFA (now called Kaplan Schweser)
- See more at: http://wealthforcommongood.org/campaigns/build-a-more-just-economy/#sthash.lQGtl8Rx.dpuf

“I made millions studying the math of mortgages and bonds and helping bankers pass the Chartered Financial Analyst Exam. It isn’t fair that I have retired in comfort after a career working with financial instruments while people who worked as nurses, teachers, soldiers, etc. are worried about paying for their future, their healthcare, and their children’s educations. They are the backbone of this country that allowed me to succeed. I am willing to pay more taxes so that everyone can look forward to a secure future like I do. I am the 1%. I stand with the 99%. (Which equals 100% of America.) Tax me.”
– Carl Schweser, founder of Schweser Study Program for the CFA (now called Kaplan Schweser)
- See more at: http://wealthforcommongood.org/campaigns/build-a-more-just-economy/#sthash.lQGtl8Rx.dpuf

“I made millions studying the math of mortgages and bonds and helping bankers pass the Chartered Financial Analyst Exam. It isn’t fair that I have retired in comfort after a career working with financial instruments while people who worked as nurses, teachers, soldiers, etc. are worried about paying for their future, their healthcare, and their children’s educations. They are the backbone of this country that allowed me to succeed. I am willing to pay more taxes so that everyone can look forward to a secure future like I do. I am the 1%. I stand with the 99%. (Which equals 100% of America.) Tax me.”
– Carl Schweser, founder of Schweser Study Program for the CFA (now called Kaplan Schweser)
- See more at: http://wealthforcommongood.org/campaigns/build-a-more-just-economy/#sthash.lQGtl8Rx.dpuf

Two Observations on the Economy

Or if you prefer: the economic recovery. Neither of these, I'm willing to bet, will thrill you all that much. 

• Simpleton Math: In the last two years house prices have gone up 20%. Wages have not. After the 2008 housing collapse, more than 7.5 million homeowners lost their houses and even today, about 9 million are still underwater.

• Datapoint: the US Census Bureau says that in 2012 (latest data available) 20% of all American kids were living in poverty.

That goes along with the 20 percent who are on Medicaid. When did the American people lose the bubble on these things. The rest of us are getting royally screwed while the already filthy rich continue to suck us dry and complain about government over-spending (on stuff that actually helps people).

Who Goes Shopping?

The American Future

I remember the time where shopping used to pass for entertainment for a great many people in this country. You just go to a store, and there were millions of them selling God knows what, and buy shit you didn't need and maybe wanted at the time but don't want anymore. Look around your house: look how much stuff you have . . . now start eliminating all the stuff that you don't need. How much of it is left? What you've got surrounding you in your house, brothers and sisters, is all the evidence of the sterling work you've accomplished in keeping the myth of the viability of capitalism alive. Endless expansion. That's the basic premise of it. Capitalism "works" because there's more and more of everything all the time. Isn't "economic growth" the very foundation of every idea the politicians have? The unquestioning acceptance that everything will be fine if we just can get back to those lovely times of economic growth every year, year after year.

Well, we're in a different universe now. The answer to the question posed in the title is: fewer and fewer . . . and accelerating. You could do worse than reading the entire piece I've lifted this snippet from. It is not encouraging. We're whistling through a graveyard . . .

The absolute collapse in retail visitor counts is the warning siren that this country is about to collide with the reality Americans have run out of time, money, jobs, and illusions. The exponential growth model, built upon a never ending flow of consumer credit and an endless supply of cheap fuel, has reached its limit of growth. The titans of Wall Street and their puppets in Washington D.C. have wrung every drop of faux wealth from the dying middle class. There are nothing left but withering carcasses and bleached bones.

Once the Wall Street created fraud collapsed and the waves of delusion subsided, retailers have been revealed to be swimming naked. Their relentless expansion, based on exponential growth, cannibalized itself, new store construction ground to a halt, sales and profits have declined, and the inevitable closing of thousands of stores has begun. 

The implications of this long and winding road to ruin are far reaching. Store closings so far have only been a ripple compared to the tsunami coming to right size the industry for a future of declining spending. Over the next five to ten years, tens of thousands of stores will be shuttered. Companies like JC Penney, Sears and Radio Shack will go bankrupt and become historical footnotes. Considering retail employment is lower today than it was in 2002 before the massive retail expansion, the future will see in excess of 1 million retail workers lose their jobs. Bernanke and the Feds have allowed real estate mall owners to roll over non-performing loans and pretend they are generating enough rental income to cover their loan obligations. As more stores go dark, this little game of extend and pretend will come to an end. (source)

Drip, Drip, Drip

Drip, Drip, Drip: Tax breaks for US corporations ($1.8 trillion a year) equal the entire discretionary portion of the federal budget, and are more than twice the amount of the current budget deficit ($702 billion). In 2013, there were 4,000 Americans in the top 1% of income earners who – thanks to tax breaks – paid no federal income taxes at all. None. How'd it go for you?

(To answer the question: Susan and I had to pay a few hundred bucks this year. We pay almost every year.)

This appalling and unjust inequality in bearing the public burden is what's wrong with this country, but nobody finds it atrocious. Nobody talks about it. Nobody gets angry about it. And nobody does anything about reforming a political system that will without question further shackle the American people to the service of the ruling plutocracy. The problem, as I've noted unceasingly, is the woeful ignorance and stupidity of the mass of the American people. They would really be dangerous to the prevailing order if it were otherwise. But it would take a thunderbolt from Zeus to make that happen. Maybe several.

Look What $1 Trillion Will Buy

Did you know that the president's 2015 budget request for all national security-related programs amounts to over $1 trillion? Yes, you are reading that correctly. It's not a misprint. Before going any further, just mull that number for a moment. Do you know how many starving people that could feed for two or three years? how many schools, bridges, highways, water treatment plants, wind and solar farms, light rail systems, and on and on could be built with this amount of money? But what are we going to buy with this? We're going to buy so-called "national security."

I'm not even going to go into my usual rant about how much of this is wasted, pissed away every year on everything from boondoggles for the brass, to unneeded weapons systems, to recruiting advertising, to special forces operators in roughly 175 countries in the world, to 12 battle carrier groups for the Navy, and so forth, etc., etc., etc. No, this time I'm going to just bewail how huge the number is. Monstrous in every way.

The military's friends and shills in Congress are whining that even this outrageous budget is not enough. Don't forget that the Republicans managed to exempt the DoD from the crippling budget sequester that every other department of government is bearing.

Read this piece "An Inadequate Defense Budget? Compared to Whom? Compared to When?" You know the answers to the questions . . . but it's laid out pretty neatly here.

The relationship of US defense spending to that of presumed threat nations and the girth of contemporary defense spending compared to a time of greater threat does not call into question the adequacy of the size of today's US defense budget; it calls into question the competence of current US political and military leadership, both in the Pentagon and in Congress.

This is the Way to Deal with . . .

 . . . people who think people on food stamps are shifless freeloaders, people like the lovely crowd at Fox News. The way is the way Jon Stewart does it with complete mockery and disdain. You will enjoy this clip. Please note that you have to click forward after the first video to get the entire sketch.

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Communist!

VATICAN CITY (AP) - Pope Francis called Friday for governments to redistribute wealth to the poor in a new spirit of generosity to help curb the "economy of exclusion" that is taking hold today.

I can hear the shrieks renting the air from the right already. You can be sure that Francis will be called: a socialist, a Marxist, a communist at the least. And probably a lot of other things. Whaddaya think the chances of "governments" following his advice are?