By Michael Krieger: While the general population is aware something is seriously
wrong, people remain extremely confused about the root of the problem.
This is because what’s happening all around us isn’t socialism and it
isn’t free market capitalism. It is actually a return to something much
more ancient and much more oppressive. It is a return to serfdom,
neo-fedualism and oligarchy.
Attempting to explain this reality to people is the primary focus of
my life at the moment. It’s incredibly difficult to do, because stories
spun by mainstream media and other vested interests convince the
gullible population to fight amongst themselves in petty, meaningless
narratives.
That said, some days are easier than others when it comes to highlighting the clear and negative impacts of the trends currently afflicting American life and the world at large. One such day occurred a couple of weeks ago when I penned the post: Child Poverty Jumps by 2.6 Million in Developed World Since 2008, While Number of Global Billionaires Doubles.
Today is another one of those days, with two articles coming across my screen proving once again that what is happening isn’t a recovery; it is oligarch theft.
First, we learn from the Boston Globe that:
The poverty rate in Massachusetts is the highest it’s been since 1960.
The inflation-adjusted wages of the lowest-paid workers haven’t budged in decades. Income inequality in the state has become greater than in the nation as a whole.
A report out
Monday by the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center details the plight
of the poor since President Johnson declared a war on poverty 50 years
ago. The report’s findings were at the center of a symposium held Monday
in Boston to take stock of Johnson’s “Great Society” initiatives and to
unite social service agencies, government officials, academic
researchers, and others to set a new agenda for addressing poverty.
US wages and productivity increased in tandem from 1948 into the mid-1970s, according to the report. Since then, workers’ earnings have flat-lined even as productivity has climbed. In Massachusetts, productivity more than doubled between 1979 and 2012, adjusted for inflation, but the median income climbed just 18 percent.
At the same time, wages for the top 1 percent of earners skyrocketed. If wages across all income levels had grown equally, workers in the bottom 80 percent would be earning around $10,000 more a year, while the 1 percent would be earning almost $1 million less.
The poverty threshold is less than $19,000 a year for a family of three in Massachusetts. When the “near poor” — those with incomes twice the poverty rate — are included, one in four Massachusetts residents are considered to be in need.
Without programs such as food stamps and the earned income tax credit, the poverty rate would rise to nearly 27 percent.
This poverty measure shows how much public benefit programs have helped residents, Berger said, presenting “a clearer vision of what’s actually happening.”
The above statement about how public benefits are helping residents is another part of the problem. I have argued time and time again that food stamps and other forms of “public assistance” are actually corporate welfare (see: McDonald’s Math: You Can’t Survive Working for Us). They allow corporations to not pay their employees a living wage, and instead have taxpayers pay the difference, thus subsidizing record corporate profit margins. It basically allows the following “chart of neo-feudalism” to evolve:
In case all that isn’t enough to get you excited about the recovery, the Washington Post reported earlier today that child homelessness in the USA is hitting record levels. We learn that:
Meanwhile, at the G-20 meeting:
USA! USA!
In Liberty,
Michael Krieger
Source
Mission Accomplished: Stocks & Homeless Kids Hit All-Time Highs
By Simon Black: Something is dreadfully wrong with this picture. In a report just released today by the National Center on Family Homelessness, a team of academics has demonstrated that the number of homeless children in the Land of the Free now stands at 2.5 million.
This is far and away an all-time high and constitutes roughly one out of every 30 children in America.
The report goes on to explain that among the major causes of this problem are the continuing impacts of the Great Recession that began in 2008.
Funny thing, someone ought to tell these homeless kids that the economy is doing great. Of course, we know this to be true because the stock market is near its all-time high.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average now stands at 17,633, just off its all-time high.
Also near its all-time highs is the bond market, and coincidentally, the US debt—which is now within spitting distance of $18 trillion.
In other words, if these kids ever do manage to pick themselves up off the streets, they’ll work their entire lives to pay off a debt that they never signed up for.
And it all comes down to a completely perverse, corrupt, debt-based paper money system.
Yes, no matter what happens in the world, there are always going to be rich and poor. And as painful as it may be, there will always be homeless children. That’s not really the point.
For the most part, financial wealth used to be something that people had to work to achieve. They had to produce something valuable for consumers. They had to develop new technologies and be innovative. They had to take chances and in many cases risk it all.
That’s less and less the case today.
Today one’s station in life is much more tied to how you grew up. If you were born poor, you have a 70% chance of staying poor (according to a recent study from the Pew Charitable Trust).
And needless to say, if you’re born rich, you’re going to stay rich. Much of that is due to the monetary system.
In our system today, unelected central bankers wield total control of the money supply. In their sole discretion, they have conjured trillions of dollars out of thin air, and have thus greatly inflated the money supply.
This monetary inflation has created a number of effects.
On one hand there has been substantial asset price inflation. We’ve seen the prices of stocks, bonds, luxury properties, etc. hitting fresh highs again and again.
And, naturally, it’s people who are already very wealthy who own these assets.
Then there’s the other side– retail price inflation. Think ‘cost of living’. Rent. Food. Fuel. Medical costs. All the stuff that normal people need to live.
Both asset prices and retail prices have gone up.
Now, if you’re already very wealthy, you might spend as little as 1% of your annual income on living expenses, and you keep the other 99% to invest in these assets that keep hitting fresh highs.
In this case, retail price inflation is irrelevant; central bankers are putting so much money in your pocket you don’t even notice the increase in retail prices.
Then there’s the case for everyone else. People who struggle to make ends meet and have to spend 99% of their income on living expenses. If they’re lucky they save 1% of their income.
Obviously to these folks, retail price inflation eats away at their living standards. And a substantial portion of them fall out of the system entirely and end up on the streets.
Again, this isn’t intended to rant against wealth. We tell our students each year at our entrepreneurship camps– wealth accumulated by producing valuable products and services, through hard work, great ideas, and risk-taking, is pure and noble.
By creating wealth for yourself you create wealth for others, and you create progress for humanity.
But we’re not talking about wealth creation. We’re talking about theft.
This system puts money in the pockets of people who are already wealthy by sacrificing the purchasing power and savings of everyone else. The rich get richer, the middle class gets hollowed out, and pensioners get squeezed.
They have completely broken capitalism and replaced it with state-sponsored welfare for select corporations and special interests. Totally destroying upward mobility in the process.
This is a far cry from a society that’s supposed to espouse ‘freedom and justice for all.’
As a system, it’s a complete failure.
But the only reason why it continues to have such destructive power is because we allow it to have that power.
A hundred years ago when they legalized fractional reserve banking and created the Federal Reserve, people didn’t have the options that they have today.
Now, all of the tools and technologies exist for you to completely divorce yourself from this system. Or at a minimum, substantially reduce the power and influence that governments and central bankers have over your life.
Source
Attempting to explain this reality to people is the primary focus of
my life at the moment. It’s incredibly difficult to do, because stories
spun by mainstream media and other vested interests convince the
gullible population to fight amongst themselves in petty, meaningless
narratives.That said, some days are easier than others when it comes to highlighting the clear and negative impacts of the trends currently afflicting American life and the world at large. One such day occurred a couple of weeks ago when I penned the post: Child Poverty Jumps by 2.6 Million in Developed World Since 2008, While Number of Global Billionaires Doubles.
Today is another one of those days, with two articles coming across my screen proving once again that what is happening isn’t a recovery; it is oligarch theft.
First, we learn from the Boston Globe that:
The poverty rate in Massachusetts is the highest it’s been since 1960.
The inflation-adjusted wages of the lowest-paid workers haven’t budged in decades. Income inequality in the state has become greater than in the nation as a whole.
US wages and productivity increased in tandem from 1948 into the mid-1970s, according to the report. Since then, workers’ earnings have flat-lined even as productivity has climbed. In Massachusetts, productivity more than doubled between 1979 and 2012, adjusted for inflation, but the median income climbed just 18 percent.
At the same time, wages for the top 1 percent of earners skyrocketed. If wages across all income levels had grown equally, workers in the bottom 80 percent would be earning around $10,000 more a year, while the 1 percent would be earning almost $1 million less.
The poverty threshold is less than $19,000 a year for a family of three in Massachusetts. When the “near poor” — those with incomes twice the poverty rate — are included, one in four Massachusetts residents are considered to be in need.
Without programs such as food stamps and the earned income tax credit, the poverty rate would rise to nearly 27 percent.
This poverty measure shows how much public benefit programs have helped residents, Berger said, presenting “a clearer vision of what’s actually happening.”
The above statement about how public benefits are helping residents is another part of the problem. I have argued time and time again that food stamps and other forms of “public assistance” are actually corporate welfare (see: McDonald’s Math: You Can’t Survive Working for Us). They allow corporations to not pay their employees a living wage, and instead have taxpayers pay the difference, thus subsidizing record corporate profit margins. It basically allows the following “chart of neo-feudalism” to evolve:
SAN FRANCISCO — The number of homeless children in the United States has surged in recent years to an all-time high, amounting to one child in every 30, according to a comprehensive state-by-state report that blames the nation’s high poverty rate, the lack of affordable housing and the effects of pervasive domestic violence.Ah California, ground zero of the American tech billionaire assembly line. Where VCs bleed cash with reckless abandon and children sleep in closets.
Titled “America’s Youngest Outcasts,” the report being issued Monday by the National Center on Family Homelessness calculates that nearly 2.5 million American children were homeless at some point in 2013. The number is based on the Education Department’s latest count of 1.3 million homeless children in public schools, supplemented by estimates of homeless preschool children not counted by the agency.
The problem is particularly severe in California, which has about one-eighth of the U.S. population but accounts for more than one-fifth of the homeless children, totaling nearly 527,000.
Meanwhile, at the G-20 meeting:
USA! USA!
In Liberty,
Michael Krieger
Source
______
Mission Accomplished: Stocks & Homeless Kids Hit All-Time Highs
By Simon Black: Something is dreadfully wrong with this picture. In a report just released today by the National Center on Family Homelessness, a team of academics has demonstrated that the number of homeless children in the Land of the Free now stands at 2.5 million.
This is far and away an all-time high and constitutes roughly one out of every 30 children in America.
The report goes on to explain that among the major causes of this problem are the continuing impacts of the Great Recession that began in 2008.
Funny thing, someone ought to tell these homeless kids that the economy is doing great. Of course, we know this to be true because the stock market is near its all-time high.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average now stands at 17,633, just off its all-time high.
Also near its all-time highs is the bond market, and coincidentally, the US debt—which is now within spitting distance of $18 trillion.
In other words, if these kids ever do manage to pick themselves up off the streets, they’ll work their entire lives to pay off a debt that they never signed up for.
And it all comes down to a completely perverse, corrupt, debt-based paper money system.
Yes, no matter what happens in the world, there are always going to be rich and poor. And as painful as it may be, there will always be homeless children. That’s not really the point.
For the most part, financial wealth used to be something that people had to work to achieve. They had to produce something valuable for consumers. They had to develop new technologies and be innovative. They had to take chances and in many cases risk it all.
That’s less and less the case today.
Today one’s station in life is much more tied to how you grew up. If you were born poor, you have a 70% chance of staying poor (according to a recent study from the Pew Charitable Trust).
And needless to say, if you’re born rich, you’re going to stay rich. Much of that is due to the monetary system.
In our system today, unelected central bankers wield total control of the money supply. In their sole discretion, they have conjured trillions of dollars out of thin air, and have thus greatly inflated the money supply.
This monetary inflation has created a number of effects.
On one hand there has been substantial asset price inflation. We’ve seen the prices of stocks, bonds, luxury properties, etc. hitting fresh highs again and again.
And, naturally, it’s people who are already very wealthy who own these assets.
Then there’s the other side– retail price inflation. Think ‘cost of living’. Rent. Food. Fuel. Medical costs. All the stuff that normal people need to live.
Both asset prices and retail prices have gone up.
Now, if you’re already very wealthy, you might spend as little as 1% of your annual income on living expenses, and you keep the other 99% to invest in these assets that keep hitting fresh highs.
In this case, retail price inflation is irrelevant; central bankers are putting so much money in your pocket you don’t even notice the increase in retail prices.
Then there’s the case for everyone else. People who struggle to make ends meet and have to spend 99% of their income on living expenses. If they’re lucky they save 1% of their income.
Obviously to these folks, retail price inflation eats away at their living standards. And a substantial portion of them fall out of the system entirely and end up on the streets.
Again, this isn’t intended to rant against wealth. We tell our students each year at our entrepreneurship camps– wealth accumulated by producing valuable products and services, through hard work, great ideas, and risk-taking, is pure and noble.
By creating wealth for yourself you create wealth for others, and you create progress for humanity.
But we’re not talking about wealth creation. We’re talking about theft.
This system puts money in the pockets of people who are already wealthy by sacrificing the purchasing power and savings of everyone else. The rich get richer, the middle class gets hollowed out, and pensioners get squeezed.
They have completely broken capitalism and replaced it with state-sponsored welfare for select corporations and special interests. Totally destroying upward mobility in the process.
This is a far cry from a society that’s supposed to espouse ‘freedom and justice for all.’
As a system, it’s a complete failure.
But the only reason why it continues to have such destructive power is because we allow it to have that power.
A hundred years ago when they legalized fractional reserve banking and created the Federal Reserve, people didn’t have the options that they have today.
Now, all of the tools and technologies exist for you to completely divorce yourself from this system. Or at a minimum, substantially reduce the power and influence that governments and central bankers have over your life.
Source
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